U.S. Navy being sued in Littoral Combat Ship patent case

[TexasTowelie]

David Giles, 80, a British-born ship designer, claims that the U.S. Navy stole two patents he filed in 1992 and 1993 through his company Fastship. He claims that his designed have been incorporated into Lockheed Martin designs for the LCS ships, which will eventually make up nearly a fifth of the U.S. Navy fleet. Specifically, Giles's design allows a ship to glide across the water rather than plow through as a conventional V-shaped hull would do, reaching speeds of up to 50 knots per hour. His design was originally supposed to be used on cargo ships, helping them transport cargo quicker while relying on less fuel.

Lockheed were made aware of Giles's ideas and entered into a partnership with him in 2002, beginning a routine exchange of data between the two. Even though Giles's general idea was welcomed by Navy designers, Navy planners decided they needed something half the size and up to 10 knots extra.

But suddenly in January 2003, the Navy decided it needed something more robust and a lot bigger. Giles's designs suddenly become relevant once again. Despite the good news, Giles was dropped from the team a year later and the Navy steamed ahead with using his designs, claims Giles. In 2008, Giles wrote to the Navy accusing them of breaking patent law by using his designs. The Navy rejected the claims. Then in 2010, Giles's patents expired and the Navy became free to use it as it saw fit.

Giles argued that Navy LCS had similar design, displacement and speed as his designs. The Navy countered by saying that the designs were not unique and any person with basic ship-building knowledge could up with similar designs.

The complete article is at http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/11/us_navy_being_sued_in_littoral.html .

[DetlefK]

1. The point is not whether "anybody could come up with that." The point is whether its patented.

Anybody could have come up with the Coca-Cola symbol.
Anybody could have come up with the idea to name their Smartphone "iphone".

That doesn't matter. If it's within the claims of a patent, then it's protected.