Family-Owned Aerospace Concern Alleges I.P. Theft

Wilson Aerospace LLC—a Boulder, Colorado-based, family-owned, machine-tool and metal-cutting concern—has brought a trade secret and copyright infringement lawsuit against aerospace industry titan Boeing.

The suit, filed in Washington State’s Western District Court and brought by Friedman Rubin and additional firms on behalf of Wilson Aerospace, accuses Boeing of breaching its nondisclosure and proprietary information agreements with the Colorado company. The suit further contends Boeing attempted to utilize Wilson’s Intellectual Property (IP) to create counterfeit tools used on NASA projects the likes of the International Space Station (ISS). Wilson states Boeing mismatched component designs, thereby creating 'inferior' fitting and valve products.

In addition to pointing out pilots’ and astronauts’ lives stand to be endangered by the aforementioned ‘inferior’ components, counsel alleged Boeing attempted to eliminate records of its wrongdoing. Plaintiff’s attorneys stated Boeing’s gains from the theft of Wilson’s intellectual property amount to hundreds-of-millions of dollars.

Racketeering, too, is among the claims levied in the lawsuit.

Plaintiff’s attorney Christopher Warmbold remarked: “The lawsuit talks about the various people in and outside of Boeing that Boeing was working with to develop this enterprise that was essentially targeting small tool providers, we believe, to basically bait them along and steal their intellectual property.”

Wilson Aerospace founder and president David Wilson Jr. set forth in a statement: “Boeing has not only stolen our intellectual property and damaged our company’s reputation but has used the technology incorrectly and at the expense of astronauts’ safety, which is beyond despicable.”

Boeing has dismissed Wilson’s accusations, stating in an email: “This lawsuit is rife with inaccuracies and omissions. We will vigorously defend against this in court.”

The lawsuit alleges Boeing sought to use one of Wilson Aerospace’s flagship products, the third-generation of the company’s Fluid Fitting Torque Device, to mount engines on United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Space Launch System (SLS) rocket—an orbital launch vehicle integral to NASA’s Artemis program.

United Launch Alliance is a consortium comprising Lockheed-Martin Space and Boeing Defense, Space & Security.

After working with Wilson Aerospace from 2014 to 2016 and gaining access to proprietary designs and processes developed by such, Boeing abruptly cut ties with the smaller company—but not before misappropriating and infringing upon its intellectual properties. Thereafter, Boeing awarded work on the SLS rocket to Wilson Aerospace’s competitors—so states the lawsuit.

Mr. Warmbold averred Boeing—then facing a critical design review by NASA—had retained Wilson Aerospace’s services after its own attempts to devise a means by which to mate the SLS’s engines to the rocket’s fuselage had reached an impasse.

Wilson Aerospace’s lawsuit contends Boeing “routinely muscles around and takes advantage of smaller suppliers like Wilson by stealing and infringing their most sensitive IP. The complaint refers to Boeing’s $615-million 2006 agreement with the Department of Justice to settle civil and criminal allegations that it improperly used competitors’ information to win contracts from the Air Force and NASA.

Wilson’s lawsuit accuses Boeing of a host of misdeeds, including falsifying information pertaining to an earlier iteration of Wilson’s torque device utilized aboard the International Space Station. Wilson designed the tool to NASA’s specifications; Boeing, however, approved design and manufacturing changes to the device—without consulting Wilson—then proceeded to blame the Colorado company when problems with the tool were identified.

Plaintiff’s attorney Lance Astrella argued: “Boeing had accused them [Wilson] in public forums of having made a defective tool, and being honest folks, they took the position of, ‘Gee we must have done something wrong.’”

Astrella added: “They [Wilson] put a heck of a lot of time and effort into figuring out what they were doing wrong, which was nothing.”

Wilson’s lawsuit alleges leaks aboard the ISS and the Space Shuttle Columbia were linked to shortcomings of the torque device for which Boeing allegedly falsified calibrations. The lawsuit accuses Boeing of identifying a tool Wilson built for the aerospace-and-defense giant’s Starliner spacecraft as having been produced by a different company.

Wilson Aerospace founder David Wilson is a graduate of the University of Colorado-Boulder. Wilson’s son, a software engineer, and his wife work for the family business. In its thirty-plus years of existence, Wilson Aerospace has developed tools for General Motors, nuclear plants, and refineries. The company worked with NASA on emergency exits for Russia’s Mir space station.

In cooperation with Lockheed-Martin, Wilson Aerospace invented a tool that facilitated access to and hastened the repair of the Hubble telescope.

Wilson’s association with Boeing began in the late 1990s. In 2019, after receiving worrying news pertaining to such, the company commenced looking into Boeing’s actions and practices.

Wilson Aerospace’s lawsuit claims Boeing purposefully misidentified employees of Wilson’s competitors as Boeing personnel, then—in violation of confidentiality agreements—permitted subject individuals to attend discussions and demonstrations of Wilson’s work and products. The suit alleges Boeing altered its company records, eliminating references to Wilson for purpose of obfuscating its misappropriation of the company’s work.

Because Boeing stole Wilson Aerospace’s intellectual property without securing comprehensive instructions pertaining to the proper building, installation, and use of such, several products subsequently built by Boeing are afflicted with “critical safety flaws that put lives at risk,”—so state Wilson’s attorneys.

The lawsuit further alleges Wilson’s reputation and revenues have been damaged by Boeing’s actions. Ergo, plaintiffs are seeking a trial and the awarding of damages—including an amount of money equal to that made illegitimately made by Boeing through the alleged illegal use of Wilson Aerospace’s proprietary designs and work.

Notwithstanding his acknowledgment that Wilson’s suit instantiates a David and Goliath scenario, Counselor Astrella asserted: “That’s why we put together some of the best trial lawyers in the country on our team.”

FMI: www.wilsonaerospace.com