It is hard to believe that my Veteran Owned Small Business and I have survived 20 years in the night vision and military contracting universe!
This is a brief outline and update on CANVS V SOCOM, what can only be described as the collision of a John Grisham Novel and a Monty Python Movie!
As early as 1996 I had built numerous Color Night Vision Systems. Each system was designed to demonstrate various pros and cons of the different configurations. CANVS submitted a Color Night Vision Patent to the US Patent Office prior to taking any money from the US Government. During the time that the CANVS Color Patent was pending, Color Night Vision Patents were issues to CANVS' competitors while CANVS' Color Patent never issued (more on this in a future post)!
In 1998, CANVS was awarded an Army ACT-II Contract with the Dismounted Battlespace Battle Laboratory at Fort Benning Georgia, beating out Lockheed Martin (I will get back to this in another post...). The goal of the work was to prove that there was usable color at night, a point that was still being hotly debated at the time.
Based on the lessons learned in the ACT-II contract, after about five years of amazing experimental work, I was able to manufacture the first article CANVS Binocular Color Night Vision Goggle, the CNVS-4949.
Representatives of the US Special Forces Command (SOCOM) came to me asking for a contract to deliver three Color Night Vision Goggles and Two Color Night Vision Video Systems. CANVS signed the contract but insisted that the Limited Data Rights Clause was included in the contract.
CANVS worked with numerous US Special Forces and Intelligence Community members to carry out extensive laboratory and field testing of this transformational technology. After delivery of the three sets of CANVS Color Night Vision Goggles to SOCOM, CANVS was approached by another US Government customer who also ordered goggles even before the contract was over.
US Congressional Staffers and SOCOM selected CANVS to receive the prestigious SBIR Success Story Award for its Color Night Vision Technology. CANVS was presented this award by the Director of The Small Business Administration in a ceremony near Navy SEAL Headquarters in San Diego California.
These same folks from SOCOM and Fort Belvoir's Night Vision and Electronic Sensors Directorate then showed up at the 2005 International Special Forces conference in Tampa Florida displaying a CANVS CNVS-4949 Goggle, and a poster extracted from the CANVS monthly reports to SOCOM claiming they had invented the Color Night Vision Technology (all CANVS marking had been removed). Not only was this a direct violation of the Limited Data Rights Clause in the CANVS-SOCOM Contract (a clear breach of contract), it was also confirmed by US Department of State to be an International Trafficking in Arms Regulations (ITAR) Violation to release, discuss, or display Color Night Vision Technology to Foreign Nationals without written permission from the State Department (no authorization had been requested or received into evidence in the case)..
I got business cards from everyone in the SOCOM Booth and asked permission and then took a picture of the poster. The picture clearly documents both the ITAR Violation and the breach of data rights/breach of the CANVS-SOCOM contract.
September 19, 2011, CANVS files CANVS V SOCOM after over 7 years of trying to settle the matter through the severely broken Administrative Processes.
These same folks then show up in court and their defense is that the CANVS Color Goggles never worked. These are the same guys (literally the same individuals) who gave CANVS a national award for the work, purchased over a $1,000,000 worth of Color Night Vision Systems from CANVS, and said it was an amazing new capability that they invented.
A failed attempt by me to talk face-to-face to the Chief Judge at The Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals (ASBCA) a few weeks ago to discuss the fact that "Justice Delayed, is Justice Denied" resulted in the following exchange of documents.
This request for a Writ from CANVS is asking the Federal Appeals Court to order the ASBCA to render a decision in the liability phase of the case in 30 days (this battle has been ongoing now since 2005):
This is the Federal Appeals Court asking the Government for their opinion on the matter:
This is the response to the Federal Circuit Court from the Legal Team representing SOCOM:
It is a good thing that my superpower is staying calm in the face of criminal insanity.
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