iRobot wins injunction against Robotic FX

iRobot's soap-opera-esque trade secret and patent lawsuits against rival Robotic FX entered a new phase last night, as the US District Court in Boston handed down a preliminary injunction preventing Robot FX from acting on a $279M contract to build Negotiator robots for the Department of Defense. Saying that Robotic FX CEO Jameel Ahed's admissions that he'd destroyed evidence "profoundly undermined" his credibility, the judge ruled that there was enough of a likelihood that iRobot would win its trade secret case to warrant an injunction -- the idea being to keep Robotic FX from gaining any benefits from a possible theft. The judge didn't make the exact terms of the injunction public, but she did order a trial to begin no later than April 4 -- which means there's still a lot of drama to come.

[Thanks, Jonas]

[noone1569 @ Nov 5th 2007 2:06PM]

The problem with this is . .it harms the troops. These are lifesaving devices that are not going to be deployed into combat zones becomes of some evil CEO .. .

[Andy S. @ Nov 5th 2007 2:27PM]

But it's not the fault of the lawsuit, or of iRobot that these devices will not be deployed. The fault lies squarely on the shoulders of Jameel Ahed. If he'd licensed technology from iRobot or invented his own competitive tech rather than stealing iRobot's, there wouldn't be a problem.

[Telanis @ Nov 5th 2007 4:31PM]

noone1569, I'm fairly confident you're hurting the troops' feelings by saying they should be replaced by robots.

[Wwhat @ Nov 6th 2007 1:05AM]

The more troops are harmed the better, teaches people to not start indefinite pointless wars, something that must be made so clear even a monkey gets it, for reasons that are obvious.

[Johan S @ Nov 5th 2007 3:10PM]

Blatantly stealing other people's novel ideas will harm the troops in the long term because the innovators would be denied capital/money to come up with newer better stuff for them.

That said a lot of patents are not sufficiently unique to warrant the 20 year monopoly a patent provides (just because you are the first to win a race doesn't mean others couldn't have come up with the same thing independently given slightly more time).

[kfast @ Nov 5th 2007 3:13PM]

I'm sure that other companies can provide all of the requested robotic equipment that the Department of Defense desires for it's inventory. Since it appears that Robot FX cant deliver on the order, the DoD should be able to terminate the contract and buy from someone else. Perhaps iRobot. Perhaps someone else. No harm to the troops.

[Telanis @ Nov 5th 2007 4:33PM]

ignore

[James M. Jensen II @ Nov 5th 2007 10:08PM]

From what I'm seeing here, I have to agree with those who say this is a bit unethical on iRobot's side. I think they should let them fulfill the contract while suing for compensation, if that's possible.

On the other hand, I think trade secret law is stupid and unethical, so maybe I'm biased.

[Wright @ Nov 6th 2007 3:48AM]

You're not biased. You just don't understand. Let's look at this from iRobot's view. (the facts are facts, the timing and decisions are hypothetical)
You spend all your time, your life savings and the capital of a bunch of investors developing a product to help save soldier's lives. You come up with some great technology. You patent some of it. Some of it, though, your attorneys tell you may not be patentable in view of the Supreme Court's decision in KSR. Even though it may not be patentable, you think it's a damn good idea, so you decide not to tell any outsiders about it.
Then comes your big break... the government likes your product and announces a contract that will be worth more than half of your entire Market Cap. You find out one of your former employees is also bidding for the contract. You look into it a little deeper and notice that the day he left the company, he sent himself over a thousand company-related emails to himself. WTF!!??
So you sue him, and since he seems a little sneaky, you hire a private investigator to follow him. The P.I. documents him throwing away a bunch of YOUR stuff and he buys, not one, but two heavy duty shredders.
AFTER you sue him, he ends up winning the contract.
So... what you're saying is... now that he's got the contract, you should let him deliver the robots to the army, cause the army really needs them to save soldiers' lives. I don't think so. The army should be buying them from you. And if they can't figure that out, you let the courts handle it.
iRobot isn't some enormous company that can just wait until they win damages. Losing the contract puts them at risk of going under. Maybe not a huge risk, but risk.

[Venom777 @ Nov 5th 2007 7:12PM]

Its funny, I applied to Robotic FX a month ago, and had and personally spoke wiht Jameel and Kim, and it sounded like i pretty much had the job in the bag, but i suddenly got an email from Kim stating that they do not have any positions, when clearly they did during the time i spoked with either of them. Its a sad day for them really, i hope it all turns out good for those guys.