Shame on you SOCOM and ARL...

In 2006 I went to the IDGA Night Vision Systems 2006 Conference in Arlington Virginia
where I watched as an Army Research Laboratory representative (Peter Paicopolis, Army Research Laboratory Technical Representative US Special Operations Command ) give a talk entitled: Modular Multi-Spectral Goggle in Night Vision Applications. I should point out that the title of my SOCOM SBIR Phase-II was: Multi-Spectral Low-Light Imaging. The author of the talk was the former SOCOM Program Manager for the CANVS SBIR one Kurt A. Badertscher, his title, at least for this paper, had changed to Research Engineer, Army Research Laboratory. This talk was the only reason I went to the conference as I suspected that some of the CANVS material might find its way into the presentation. I sat in disgust as the Patent Pending CANVS Color Night Vision Goggle configuration was briefed. It was abundantly clear that SOCOM and ARL were purchasing the CANVS solution from another vendor. I received a CD with copies of all of the talks presented at the conference, that is all but this talk. I was not a happy camper, I told the organizers of the conference that the only reason I paid to come to the conference was to get a copy of the talk, they said they couldn't help, ARL did not provide a copy of the talk for inclusion on the CD.

Purchasing the CANVS technology delivered under the SBIR Phase-II inside the 5 year cooling off period from the end of the project is a no-no. A lesser known fact is that CANVS was under a a contract that meet the requirements of being called a Phase-III effort. It turns out that the clock on the 5 year period starts ticking only after the end of the Phase-III effort. Reminds me of the old Timex commercials, “takes a licking and keeps on ticking”. Any way you slice it, it is against the law for ANY US Government Agency to purchase the CANVS technology from anyone but CANVS until 5 years after the end of the CANVS Phase-III.

So far no one seems to care about this but me. Numerous attempts to talk to various folks in Government whose job it is to enforce this kind of thing have resulted in the standard form letter that goes something like this:

Thank you for your concern the material will be forwarded to the proper authorities for further investigation.

Sincerely,

Joseph A Blow
Undersecretary of Buck Passing

Not to worry, I am slowly policing up all of the loose ends and expect to have their undivided attention in short order, or shall we say Court Order...