Electronics Firm Accuses Lockheed Martin Unit of Fraud

A small Orange County electronics firm has filed a $21-million fraud and breach of contract suit against a unit of defense industry giant Lockheed Martin Corp.

The suit by Infrared Systems International Inc. of Santa Ana alleges that the former Loral Fairchild Systems--now part of Lockheed Martin’s electronics group--is using Infrared-developed technology that it once had agreed to purchase but now has usurped without payment.

Officials at Lockheed Martin said they had not seen the suit and would not comment.

The suit, filed Monday in Orange County Superior Court by Infrared and its founder, Gary Ball, claims that Ball had negotiated purchase by Loral Fairchild of his company’s proprietary infrared system in 1994 but that Loral and, since the acquisition, Lockheed, have refused to honor the agreement.

Alan Curtis, Infrared’s attorney, said the so-called enhanced vision system can increase the safety of commercial airliner landings in bad weather. Pilots will be able to “see through the weather” and obtain a clear view of the upcoming runway through an electronically enhanced infrared image, he said.

Curtis said that Ball, a former Hughes Electronics engineer, had worked on infrared at Hughes. He started his own company in the early 1990s after Hughes decided to drop its infrared vision work to concentrate on radar systems.