Virgin Galactic lawsuit against Firefly moves forward
Virgin Galactic last week moved forward aggressively in its lawsuit against Firefly Space Systems, its officers, and its business partners for using stealing trade secrets.
According to the Complaint, Galactic hired Markusic in 2011 as its VP of Propulsion. Markusic’s role gave him intimate knowledge of the Company’s research into liquid rocket propulsion, space vehicle architecture, “aerospike” technology, and other confidential projects. While still employed at Galactic, Markusic allegedly solicited business partners and founded Firefly based on concepts and data he obtained in the course of his work. Galactic maintains that Markusic and Firefly relied on and continues to use the Company’s technical and marketing information, as well as Markusic’s engineering notes from his tenure at Galactic, to develop products such as a recently announced small launch vehicle.
The worst thing about this court battle to me is that if Virgin Galactic has developed worthwhile technology in connection with the aerospike engine, they have done nothing to develop it, and are now acting to squelch someone else’s effort.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Virgin Galactic last week moved forward aggressively in its lawsuit against Firefly Space Systems, its officers, and its business partners for using stealing trade secrets.
According to the Complaint, Galactic hired Markusic in 2011 as its VP of Propulsion. Markusic’s role gave him intimate knowledge of the Company’s research into liquid rocket propulsion, space vehicle architecture, “aerospike” technology, and other confidential projects. While still employed at Galactic, Markusic allegedly solicited business partners and founded Firefly based on concepts and data he obtained in the course of his work. Galactic maintains that Markusic and Firefly relied on and continues to use the Company’s technical and marketing information, as well as Markusic’s engineering notes from his tenure at Galactic, to develop products such as a recently announced small launch vehicle.
The worst thing about this court battle to me is that if Virgin Galactic has developed worthwhile technology in connection with the aerospike engine, they have done nothing to develop it, and are now acting to squelch someone else’s effort.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
They’ve already effectively closed Firefly. What are they trying to do now? Make the rubble bounce?
This seems more than a bit punitive, to the point of seeking to “teach a lesson” to others in the field, since Firefly is no longer competitive. That is an unwelcome development. It is truly strange that a company focused on pursuing SpaceShip2 in 2013 would be working on aerospikes at all, and even more so that having decided not to pursue them, they are trying to keep others from doing so. It’s not like others have not flown these sorts of engines in the recent past, after long labors of their own.
George Whitesides did not show this level of vindictiveness in any association we have had with him. I am wondering about Mr. Branson, however. Is there a claim of some specific improvement being stolen that is truly worthwhile, …or is Branson saying that “if *I* ever paid you to work on aerospikes, you cannot work on aerospikes for anyone else”???
Robert wrote: “if Virgin Galactic has developed worthwhile technology in connection with the aerospike engine, they have done nothing to develop it, and are now acting to squelch someone else’s effort.”
This is starting to remind me of the Wright Brothers. They invented the airplane and three axis control, then spent the next several years defending their patents instead of continuing to advance the state of the art. But then again, the Wrights had been shopkeepers, not inventors, so it is hard to say how much additional ingenuity was left in them.
Virgin Galactic may end up doing the same thing, except without the patents to defend. The heritage Virgin companies are not engineering companies but provide services to the general public. Virgin may not have a lot of ingenuity or much incentive to develop the aerospike engine.
It is hard to say what is proprietary to Virgin, what they innovated themselves, but I wonder whether this lawsuit is merely sour grapes that Markusic left to start his own company, working on the same type of engine (as Tom Billings just suggested).
According to Firefly’s website, Markusic is already well versed in rocketry, having been “Principal Propulsion Engineer at SpaceX” as well as a lifelong propulsion engineer, so it is difficult to know what he may have learned at Virgin or why Virgin thinks that he is using their proprietary information.
http://www.fireflyspace.com/about/the-team
The advantage to the arbitration and disadvantage of the courts is that in the courts the proprietary information may end up becoming public knowledge.