Some members of the public have written in to MINDEF about the false allegations by MobileStats against the Ministry. We have replied to these individuals, and we thought it would be useful to post our reply here too. Thank you for your email on the acquisition of mobile Battalion Casualty Station (BCS). MINDEF awards contracts to many suppliers globally. A standard condition in these contracts is that suppliers must provide a warranty that IP rights for their products have been obtained. If suppliers are found to have infringed the IP rights of another party, the contract requires the supplier to bear all the costs of such infringement. For this particular case, MINDEF put out an open tender for a mobile BCS, which was awarded to Syntech Engineers in 2009. In 2011, the owner of MobileStats alleged that its patent was infringed and brought a legal suit against MINDEF. Syntech as the supplier under contractual obligations defended the suit. MINDEF has no pecuniary interest in the outcome of the judgement of patent infringements involving our suppliers as our contracts indemnify us against all damages. In January 2014, the High Court issued a judgement that the patent being claimed by MobileStats was not valid and revoked it. After MobileStats lost its legal suit, its owner had issued false allegations against MINDEF and cast aspersions on the Court’s decision to dismiss his claims. MINDEF has referred these false allegations to the Attorney-General. Yours sincerely, COL Dinesh Vasu Dash Director (Information) MINDEF Communications Organisation
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 09:22:21 +0000
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