Boeing and subsidiary file trade secrets lawsuit against Virgin Galactic

Boeing and its subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation have sued Virgin Galactic, alleging the space tourism company has misappropriated trade secrets. In addition, Boeing and Aurora noted that Virgin Galactic has failed to pay it almost $26 million for work on new craft. In 2022, Virgin Galactic selected Aurora to …

[Headley_Grange]

Clarke, Bester, Ballard, Banks - none of them covered this sort of stuff in their fiction. I feel robbed.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Try Gibson, Sterling, Maddox, and Morgan, although I'm slightly surprised that J.G. Ballard never touched on the matter.

[MAF]

Obligatory door comment

A key point in Virgins defence case - If we had stolen Boeings tech, the doors would have blown off by now....

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Obligatory door comment

True. But we know who Michael Caine works for now :-)

[werdsmith]

I feel that this enterprise has already passed its apogee.

[Boris the Cockroach]

Is a

RUD in the offing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trade secret?

If something is on an open SharePoint site it isn't much of a secret.

In the US, Trade Secrets are covered by the 'Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016', which states:

"all forms and types of financial, business, scientific, technical, economic, or engineering information, including patterns, plans, compilations, program devices, formulas, designs, prototypes, methods, techniques, processes, procedures, programs, or codes, whether tangible or intangible, and whether or how stored, compiled, or memorialized physically, electronically, graphically, photographically, or in writing if (A) the owner thereof has taken reasonable measures to keep such information secret; and (B) the information derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable through proper means by, another person who can obtain economic value from the disclosure or use of the information."

Sticking something on an open SharePoint site would not seem to me that the owner has "taken reasonable measures to keep such information secret".

[Hurn]

Scaled Composites not mentioned?

"Aurora had to do more reverse engineering"

As I recall, Scaled Composites was the company which built Eve.

Did the Bearded One not pay them enough for the plans, that reverse engineering is now needed, to make replacements?

Seems like Eve's creators should have received a nod, in the article.

[skwdenyer]

Re: Scaled Composites not mentioned?

In a class action lawsuit against VG it was stated that VG severed the relationship with Scaled after the test flight crash, and that “Scaled Composites never provided The Spaceship Company with “accurate or reliable engineering drawings” for either the carrier aircraft or Unity.”

https://casetext.com/case/kusnier-v-virgin-galactic-holdings-inc