$20 million dollar suit against OLPC unresolved

By Tim Conneally, BetaNews

March 14, 2008, 3:56 PM

After the One Laptop Per Child project was sued by Nigerian keyboard manufacturer LANCOR in January for $20 million and an injunction on the OLPC XO was imposed in Nigeria, the case has taken root in US federal court.

The suit claims that OLPC used the Lagos Analysis Corp's (LANCOR) multilingual keyboard design in its low-cost XO laptop without permission. Through litigation in Nigerian court, the company has effectively crippled the OLPC project in that country.

LANCOR announced in February that the Lagos federal high court "rejected OLPC's bid to dismiss the case," and extended the Motion on Notice which temporarily prohibits OLPC from distributing its laptops in the country.

Documentation of this motion is available from the OLPC wiki. The non-profit organization, along with the other companies detailed in the suit -- The Growing Business Foundation, Leapsoft Ltd., and Alteq Ltd. -- attempted to dismiss the case on the grounds that, among other things, it is "wholly incompetent, vexatious, and a gross abuse of the process of court."

The document of the case thus far also shows the court's acknowledgment that LANCOR both misrepresented and concealed material facts from the case.

OLPC sought absolution from the court in Massachusetts, where LANCOR is headquartered. This week, the case has been escalated to the federal court system based on a countersuit from LANCOR.