I Fell Asleep on the Keyboard and Got This Headline

Patent infringement lawsuits can make some bold claims. But few can top a complaint recently filed against the Japanese electronics maker Fujitsu in federal court in Manhattan.

A company called LinkCo contends that Fujitsu perpetrated a huge fraud during an earlier patent infringement case. In 2002, a jury awarded LinkCo $3.5 million in damages, an amount based on a single product, sold in Japan that was unprofitable. The two sides reached a settlement the next year.

Now LinkCo alleges that the actual theft of trade secrets was not just the one product, but information that is "the cornerstone of billions of dollars of business for Fujitsu." The defendants "conducted a brazen, international scheme to defraud the plaintiff and to commit fraud on this court."

The complaint contends that Fujitsu controlled witnesses, suppressed documents, suppressed the identities of witnesses, forged documents, and used technological tricks to hide data and make it inaccessible by conventional means.

And just how did LinkCo uncover this audacious scheme years afterward? A drunken party guest and dumb luck.

Here's LinkCo's tale: A principal of the company, David Israel-Rosen, was at a party and encountered someone who was drunk and offered an apology for his company's work on litigation support for Fujitsu, which he suggested "presented some kind of conflict or was improper."

So Israel-Rosen went searching on Fujitsu's Web site. He fell asleep on the keyboard and "inadvertently highlighted" English language translations that were ordinarily white text on white background but when highlighted revealed "the true nation and extent of Fujutsu's product development and promotions," according to the complaint.

"Fujitsu used these devices on the internet to impede discovery by non-Japanese language readers," asserts LinkCo, which is seeking $850 million in damages.

Quite a tale. But as famed trial lawyer David Boies has been known to say, "It's better to be lucky than smart." In the LinkCo complaint, drafted by Peter T. Shapiro of the law firm Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, the adverb "serendipitously" is used to describe the konking out at the computer.

Karen Donovan

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