Raytheon Seeks Damages Against Indigo, FLIR Systems

After a U.S. Court of Appeals favorably reversed an August 2009 decision by a federal district court in Texas, Raytheon said it would continue to pursue its claims for significant damages resulting from theft of trade secrets and misappropriation of intellectual property by Indigo Systems Corporation and FLIR Systems, Inc. The district court's ruling was over-turned by the three-judge appellate court panel on statute of limitations grounds, trade-secret misappropriation claims relating to infrared camera technology brought by Raytheon against Indigo/FLIR. The Court of Appeals held that Raytheon had alleged that it reasonably relied on Indigo/FLIR's repeated, but false, assurances that specific policies and procedures had been implemented to safeguard Raytheon's trade secrets. The Court of Appeals thus revived the case and returned it to the district court for further proceedings. The district court, in its earlier ruling, had held that Raytheon's claims were time-barred as a matter of law on the theory that Raytheon should have suspected the wrongdoing and brought the lawsuit earlier. The Court of Appeals rejected that opinion, explaining that the district court had improperly resolved genuine issues of material fact against Raytheon and thereby intruded on the province of a jury.