After losing business to U.S. government and international customers to two small companies in the security detection space, OSI Systems is using the legal system to unfairly target the companies to tarnish their reputations and force them to spend precious funding defending themselves rather than invest in their products, the top executives from SureScan Corp. and Viken Detection allege.
In the case of Viken Detection, which in 2018 year beat out OSI’s American Science & Engineering (AS&E) business unit for a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency contract for handheld imagers, the company successfully defended a lawsuit alleging misappropriation of trade secrets by AS&E and two subsequent appeals by AS&E were also rejected last June and July by state courts in Massachusetts.
In October, AS&E filed suit against Viken in federal court claiming patent infringement related to two products that Viken has developed that enable privately owned vehicles to be scanned from the top, bottom and sides while the occupants remain in the car. AS&E charges that Viken is using the same backscatter X-ray techniques that it developed and is taking advantage of stolen trade secrets by a former employee that went on to found Viken and is currently one of its owners and chief technology officer.