Freedom Wireless, Inc. v. Boston Communications Group, Inc.

220 F. Supp. 2d 16 (2002)

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Freedom Wireless, Inc. v. Boston Communications Group, Inc.

United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts
220 F. Supp. 2d 16 (2002)

KL

Facts

Daniel Harned worked for a space-technology company called Orbital. Harned had an employment contract with Orbital in which Harned agreed that all inventions related to Orbital’s methods of conducting business that he conceived of or made during his employment with Orbital belonged to Orbital. Harned further agreed to comply with Orbital’s reasonable requests to assign patent rights for those inventions to Orbital. During his employment with Orbital, Harned conceived of and invented technology relating to prepaid wireless-telephone billing, obtaining two patents. Orbital did not do any work in the wireless-telephone or telephone industries or ask Harned to assign the patent rights to Orbital. Harned subsequently worked for Freedom Wireless, Inc. (Freedom) (plaintiff) and transferred ownership of his two patents to Freedom. Freedom later sued Boston Communications Group, Inc. (BCG) (defendant) for patent infringement. BCG moved for summary judgment, arguing that Harned’s employment agreement with Orbital had assigned ownership rights for Harned’s invention to Orbital, meaning Freedom was not the rightful owner of the patents and had no standing to sue for patent infringement.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (Harrington, J.)

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