Litton Case Tests Firms’ Rights to Worker Inventions

In the defense industry, corporations usually get credit for inventions; individuals seldom do. Mel Morrison would like to change that system.

A former senior engineer at Litton Industries, Morrison patented a device in 1987 that he contends will revolutionize inertial navigation of aircraft and missiles.

Morrison said he made the invention at home and tried to interest the Beverly Hills-based conglomerate, but Litton rejected him. After learning about the patent, however, Litton demanded that Morrison surrender rights to the invention to the company under terms of his employment contract.

Litton’s Guidance & Control Systems division in Woodland Hills, where Morrison worked for three years, is a major producer of navigational devices for military and commercial aircraft.

When Morrison refused, the company sued him and then fired him, prompting a countersuit. Litton’s case and the counter-claim are set for trial this June in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

“There is a lot of thievery in this business,” Morrison, 33, said.

Litton attorneys allow that Morrison is “a pretty good engineer,” but they also call him a “liar” and say he tried to cheat the company out of its right to the patent.

“To me it is a simple case of an engineer who was getting a good salary and who wanted to keep something for himself,” said Frederick A. Lorig, Litton’s attorney in the case. “In depositions, he (Morrison) was impeached, which is another term for caught lying. “

Litton believes that its engineers are adequately rewarded without having to use their technical talents outside the job.

“In the defense contracting business, engineers are paid much better than elsewhere in industry. It is a quid pro quo, “ Lorig said. “They are paid for their creative talents.”

But Matthew V. Herron, Morrison’s attorney, said corporations are seldom willing to reward inventors and often use their ownership of employee inventions more to stifle competition than to advance technology.

“Just about all the other advanced industrial countries require a more equitable sharing arrangement between inventors and their employers,” Herron said.

Ted DeBoer, founder of the National Inventors Foundation, said U.S. patent laws generally provide, at best, weak protection for inventors. Small inventors can easily find themselves in trouble if they are unable to document claims against corporations, he said.

“These big corporations have big banks of lawyers,” DeBoer said. “Of course, if they didn’t they would be getting a lot of nuisance suits.”

Typically, defense scientists or engineers apply for patents on their inventions and then, after the patents are awarded, assign the patents to their employers. Although the scientists are often recognized within technical circles for their accomplishments, they seldom gain wider recognition.

In the aftermath of the Gulf War, for example, not a single American inventor has gained public status for his or her contribution to the high-technology weapons that played such an important role in winning.

Since Litton filed the suit against Morrison in 1989, the paper war has rapidly gained momentum. The case file consists of four volumes of pleadings, not including the transcripts from an estimated 24 hours of depositions of Morrison alone.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Gadbois Jr. issued a ruling in October that severely undercut Morrison’s position, concluding that under Morrison’s employment agreement with Litton, the firm is entitled to the patent.

Nonetheless, the judge left open the issue of whether Litton forfeited its right to the patent because it showed no interest in Morrison’s invention until after the patent was awarded and began to attract the interest of competing defense firms.

“They had this thing on a golden platter and weren’t interested in it,” Herron said. “All they want to do is take things and deep-file them to keep their existing products from facing competition.”

As proof of Litton’s disinterest in the invention, Morrison has a confidential internal Litton memorandum dated six months before the patent was issued, concluding that his invention “has no practical utility” and “strongly recommend(ed) that Litton not pursue development of such a sensor.”

Lorig said the memorandum is tainted because Morrison submitted the invention to Litton for consideration anonymously through a patent attorney, who did not disclose at the time that the invention came from a Litton employee. The company might have been far more interested in an idea it already owned than one it would have had to buy, he added.

Morrison is not accused of stealing Litton’s technology, and he was not directly working on such technology in his job at Litton. Nonetheless, the employment agreement provides that Litton has rights to all “inventions, developments and discoveries” involving “any subject matter” of concern to the division that employs the engineer or scientist.

“That is what I find so objectionable,” Herron said. “You have a guy working on something on his own time, and they say they are not interested in it, and then after he has developed it, they jump on it.

“If you had a janitor who invented a cure for cancer in his own time, he might win,” Herron added.

Morrison said he conceived of his idea before coming to Litton, but the judge found no evidence to support that assertion. Morrison said he spent about $50,000 of his own money to develop the invention.

Morrison’s inertial measuring unit can navigate an aircraft or missile by sensing acceleration and calculating changes in relative position.

The device uses a one-inch cube, inside of which is a magnetically levitated second cube. The second cube’s free-floating position is measured by a set of complex sensors in the larger, stationary cube, based on the magnetic field that levitates the smaller cube.

Morrison says the device could be mass-produced for less than $100, a small fraction of the cost of mechanical spinning-gyroscope-type measuring units that cost thousands of dollars, or of laser-type units that cost even more.

He contends that Northrop Corp. was keenly interested in the device and was near agreeing to license the technology when Litton interfered. After looking into the issue, a Northrop spokesman said the firm would have no comment.

Lorig insists that the Northrop deal is “a fantasy on his (Morrison’s) part.” He said “nobody really knows” the potential of Morrison’s invention. “This isn’t the best idea since hot cakes, but it has merit.”

Litton is interested in the patent only as a backup to its own work on similar technologies, Lorig said.

Meanwhile, Morrison has a new job with Systron-Donner Corp., a Concord, Calif., defense contractor and Litton competitor.