Electronics rivals
In dispute over
circuit-board idea
San Diego firm
Takes action against
Escondido company
By Pam Kragen
Times Advocate Staff Writer
Yes we won the case. Thanks to a brilliant
attorney named Joel Siegal.
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San Diego - A San Diego Electronics company is trying to
stop a competing Escondido company from developing a new printed-circuit
board because it alleges the local firm " pirated"
the designs. The Escondido company, Graham Electronics Manufacturing
Inc., is dismissing the claim as " ridiculous." San
Diego-based Electronics Solutions has petitioned San Diego Superior
Court Judge Philip Sharp for an injunction to stop Graham Electronics
from developing and selling the "backplane" a printed-circuit
board that allows electronic signals to pass from one part of
a computer system to another with minimal signal degradation.
Rod Bolton, president of Electronics Solutions, said his former
director of engineering, Leonid Besprozvanny, who has a doctorate
in electrical engineering, left his company in July and joined
Graham Electronics, taking the technology for the backplane with
him. But Graham officials say their backplane design is completely
different, and an injunction is merely an attempt bay a larger
company - Electronics Solutions -to eliminate legitimate competition.
"What we have developed here is totally different. This
is a case of them trying to stifle us, said Vincenzo Bertucci,
president of Graham Electronics. The flap started last July when
Besprozvanny left Mira Mesa based Electronics Solutions, which
is a subsidiary of Zero Corp., a multi-million dollar electronics
firm. Before he left Electronics Solutions, Besprozvanny was
involved in the development of the backplane. The company hired
an outside consulting firm to assist in the design, and it spent
$170,000 on the project, Bolton said.
The backplane took six months to develop and it hit the market
last August, Bolton said. Upon leaving Electronics Solutions,
Besprozvanny rehired the same outside consulting firm, Electro-CADD
of San Diego, to design an identical piece of equipment, alleges
Bolton. "It's like coping a test," Bolton said. "They
copied our test and they didn't have to study." Bolton said
his company wants Graham Electronics to cease development work
on its own backplane because it "pirated" Electronics
Solutions' "trade secret." Bertucci at Graham Electronics
said the premise of the injunction is "ridiculous."
A product no longer retains "trade secret" protection
once it is released to the market, for more than six (read
more)
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