[LINK] Even giving away laptops can lead to $20m Nigerian Patent claims!

[Adam Todd]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/laptop-company-stole-nigeria-keyboard-design-lawsuit/2008/03/14/1205126187211.html

Laptop company stole Nigeria keyboard design: lawsuit

    * 
<http://www.smh.com.au/cgi-bin/common/popupEmailArticle.pl?path=/articles/2008/03/14/1205126187211.html>Email 

    * 
<http://www.smh.com.au/cgi-bin/common/popupPrintArticle.pl?path=/articles/2008/03/14/1205126187211.html>Printer 
friendly version
    * 
<http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/laptop-company-stole-nigeria-keyboard-design-lawsuit/2008/03/14/1205126187211.html#>Normal 
font
    * 
<http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/laptop-company-stole-nigeria-keyboard-design-lawsuit/2008/03/14/1205126187211.html#>Large 
font
    * 
<http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/laptop-company-stole-nigeria-keyboard-design-lawsuit/2008/03/14/1205126187211.html#>Saved 

March 14, 2008 - 3:49PM
Advertisement

A potential $US20 million problem for the group behind the so-called 
$US100 laptop isn't going away easily.

Ade Oyegbola, an inventor who claims the One Laptop Per Child 
nonprofit stole his designs for a Nigerian keyboard, recently won a 
round in a Lagos court. Now this week, Oyegbola is pressing his case 
in U.S. federal court.

The dispute began last fall. One Laptop Per Child, spun out of the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Nicholas Negroponte, was 
sued by Oyegbola's company, Lagos Analysis Corp., known as Lancor.

Nigerian dialects require punctuation marks not found on standard 
English keyboards, so Lancor developed a keyboard that uses four 
shift keys to produce the symbols. Oyegbola claims that OLPC bought 
two of Lancor's keyboards in 2006, then copied the design for its own 
models intended for sale in Nigeria.

"It was obvious to anybody who looked at it," Oyegbola said Thursday.

Lancor filed a patent lawsuit seeking $US20 million in damages in 
Nigeria, and last month a federal court there rejected OLPC's bid to 
dismiss the case. The court also extended a restraining order 
prohibiting OLPC from distributing its laptops in the country.

Separately, OLPC asked a court in Massachusetts, where Lancor also 
has an office, to clear it of any wrongdoing. This week, that case 
was moved to federal court, where Lancor filed a counterclaim 
alleging violation of trade secrets.

A spokesman for OLPC had no comment. When Lancor's lawsuit first 
emerged, the organization said that as far as it knew, "all of the 
intellectual property used in the XO laptop is either owned by OLPC 
or properly licensed."

The keyboard lawsuit is one of a few setbacks for OLPC, which has 
gotten its laptops to fewer children than it first expected and at 
roughly twice the originally sought price of $US100. Even so, the 
group now claims to have gotten orders for a half-million machines 
for children in several countries, including Peru, Uruguay, Mongolia, 
Rwanda, Haiti and Afghanistan.

AP