Alcatel owns US employee's thoughts

By Tim Richardson
12/08/2002

A US man says he will appeal a court's decision which ruled that an idea that existed only in his mind belonged to his employer.

Evan Brown has been working on an idea to convert old computer code so that it can be run on modern machine since 1975.

When Brown mentioned the idea to his employers while he worked for DSC Communications of Plano, Texas (subsequently bought by Alcatel) DSC decided it owned the rights to Brown's insight and demanded that he revealed his idea. Brown refused and he was fired. DSC then launched legal action against him to gain possession of his thoughts.

Almost six years later and Brown has finally been told by a judge that DSC is entitled to his idea. He's also been told to stump up $332,000 in legal costs. Throughout the legal process Brown maintained that he'd never written down the idea, only solved part of it while employed by DSC and thought of some of it outside office hours.

His former employer maintained that he had signed a contract which contained a clause giving DSC ownership rights of any of his "inventions".

Brown's idea was deemed to be an "invention".

On his Web site Brown claims he's been "railroaded" and has vowed to appeal.

He also launched a scathing attack on the justice system in Texas.

The lesson from DSC/Alcatel .vs. Evan Brown? If you've got a good idea, keep it under your hat. That, or abstain from thinking altogether. ®

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/26627.html

 
Judge gives Alcatel rights to software ex-employee created

By Vikas Bajaj
The Dallas Morning News
July 31, 2002

Alcatel has won the legal rights to a former employee's software idea in a long-running lawsuit dealing with the scope of employment contracts and ownership of ideas and inventions.

State District Judge Curt B. Henderson ruled Friday that Evan Brown's contract with the French telecommunications giant with U.S. headquarters in Plano, Texas, gave it legal rights to his work. Brown was also ordered to pay Alcatel's legal fees totaling $332,000.

Brown, who has been defending himself for the last year, said he will seek a new trial or an appeal if he doesn't get a new trial.

"I had an idea that was only in my head," he said. "It did not exist. This is an extortion of an employee's idea."

DSC Communications, which Alcatel bought in 1998, sued Brown in 1997 for withholding an idea for software that can translate computer programs written in older languages to new languages. At the time, experts said if it worked, the idea could be worth millions of dollars.

An attorney who represented Alcatel said the decision reaffirms the validity of employment contracts.

"It's another indication that those agreements are appropriate," said Michael Lynn, of Lynn Tillotson & Pinker LLP.

Brown has argued that he was working on his idea for 12 years before he worked for DSC and didn't spend company time on it.

In January 2000, Henderson ordered Brown to flesh out and disclose the idea so Alcatel could evaluate it. He finished the work in September 2000.

"Our scientists looked at it and found that there remains gaps in his disclosure," Alcatel spokesman Brian Murphy said. "It's not complete."

Brown said he ran into technical hurdles when transcribing the idea but was forbidden from working on it further by Henderson.

Since the lawsuit began Brown has declared bankruptcy, sold his Plano house and moved to a farm in Hamilton County, Texas. It's unclear how he will pay the $332,000 in legal fees.

"I have no assets," Brown said. "I am indigent, but I am still fighting."

Alcatel couldn't say if it will be able to collect the fees.

The case is one of several high-profile suits Alcatel has waged against former employees and, in some instances, their new employers who it claims stole and profited from the company's trade secrets.

It remains embroiled in a suit with networking giant Cisco Systems Inc., which acquired Richardson, Texas-based Monterey Networks in 1999. Alcatel claims the start-up hired a team of engineers to gain Alcatel secrets and expertise. Cisco counter-sued Alcatel last year, saying the French company sabotaged its effort to develop a new product.

http://www.azstarnet.com/public/startech/wire2.html.
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