What Government’s Being Accused of Serial Patent Infringement and IP Theft?

It’s not China, often accused of IP and copyright
piracy, and used as a stalking horse by politicians seeking to

push through legislation to control internet security.
Fox News finds several companies accusing various agencies of
the federal government of stealing software and other forms of
intellectual property, including one lawsuit against the Department
of Energy by the technology company Demodulation seeking $50
million.  The dispute involves “microwire” and related
intelligence-gathering trade secrets. The government argues the
patents are expired now, but the company claims they weren’t before
the government helped drive it out of business. The Army settled
with another company last year, Apptricity, which accused the
government of wilfully ignoring software license limits and trying
to conceal that it was misappropriating the software. Nevertheless,
after a $50 million settlement, the company’s founder and president
told Fox he didn’t “think there was malicious intent.”

Other accusations chronicled by Fox News include the government
ignoring the copyright for a lead-free “green” bullet, infringing
on a patent for a mine detecting device, and stealing software to
monitor food safety. The owner of the company that developed the
food safety software, for the FDA, is apparently a “retired federal
government official.” He told Fox he had “never seen anything like”
what the feds did to his company.

Related: Ron
Bailey on killing off software patents.

More Reason on copyright and patent law.