McDonnell family member sues Boeing

ST. LOUIS, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- A member of the McDonnell aerospace family says he is suing U.S. aircraft maker Boeing for alleged patent infringement.

William "Randy" McDonnell, owner of Missouri-based Advanced Aerospace Technologies, is seeking $160 million from Boeing Co. and Insitu, a Boeing subsidiary that produces unmanned aircraft, for allegedly encroaching on McDonnell's patent for a skyhook retrieval system that enables drones to set down without a runway, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Tuesday.

The lawsuit was filed last week in U.S. District Court in St. Louis.

McDonnell says he provided his patented technology to Insitu, which then incorporated it into its various unmanned aircraft systems. Insitu and Boeing have never paid any royalties or other amounts to McDonnell's company for their use of the inventions, McDonnell said Tuesday in a release.

Boeing denied the allegations, the newspaper said.

McDonnell said most of Insitu's and Boeing's revenues from the unmanned aerial systems have been generated from the sale of services to the United States and foreign governments, with Boeing and Insitu maintaining ownership of the systems. In some cases, however, the hardware has been sold to the U.S. government, attorneys for Advanced Aeropsace Technologies said..

McDonnell's company has filed a companion lawsuit in Washington against the U.S. government to recover royalties due on those sales "to whatever extent that it can be shown that, in accepting such hardware, the government authorized and consented to the infringement," attorneys said in a release.

McDonnell is the son of Sanford McDonnell, chief executive and chairman of McDonnell Douglas from 1972 to 1988, and a cousin of John McDonnell, a former McDonnell Douglas chief executive and chairman who guided the corporation through its merger with Boeing and still holds a seat on Boeing's board of directors, the newspaper said.