Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) urged the U.S. District Court in San Diego...
Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) urged the U.S. District Court in San Diego to dismiss ViaSat claims of patent infringement and breach of contract. ViaSat sued SS/L in February over proprietary technology designs (CD Feb 6 p4). In a memorandum, SS/L called…
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the plaintiff’s direct infringement allegations “nonsensical” and said the contract breach claims are “particularly implausible in light of plaintiffs’ allegations that the purported ‘proprietary information’ was disclosed by ViaSat in patent applications.” Defendants “should not have to guess at what confidential information they are alleged to have misappropriated or when they purportedly misappropriated it” and they shouldn’t have to defend themselves against “frivolous claims of misappropriating non-confidential information that was never designated as ‘proprietary information’ and was published in patent applications years ago,” the memorandum said. SS/L said the plaintiffs haven’t pleaded sufficient facts “to state a claim against Loral under either a direct infringement or an alter ego liability theory.” ViaSat also should be denied leave to replead their claims against Loral, SS/L said: ViaSat’s contracts reveal that it “plainly knew that it was transacting with SS/L and not Loral.” SS/L took ViaSat’s ideas as its own “by not only attempting to patent those ideas but by also incorporating them into its satellite designs, including a satellite currently being built for one of ViaSat’s key competitors,” ViaSat’s complaint said. The satellite provider’s pattern of using the proprietary information of other companies for its own benefit extended to ViaSat’s subsidiary WildBlue, the complaint said: The exploitation of ViaSat’s and WildBlue’s technologies by SS/L “was in disregard of the strict confidentiality agreements signed by SS/L."