Ex-worker: Seagate stole firm's technology

A former Seagate Technology engineer who worked in the Twin Cities has turned whistleblower in a long-running patent infringement lawsuit.

Paul A. Galloway, who worked at the disk drive maker until July, claims he witnessed the company steal a competitor's protected technology and destroy the source code to cover it up while working at a Seagate design center in Minnesota. His allegations are contained in an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in New York earlier this month. Galloway's affidavit is sealed, but a supporting document filed in court Nov. 30 and posted online Monday, along with a story by the New York Times, summarized Galloway's "eyewitness account."

Seagate, which operates out of Scotts Valley, Calif., is a significant Twin Cities employer, with about 3,000 workers in Bloomington and Shakopee. It's not clear which Twin Cities facility Galloway worked in.

His account could breathe new life into a winding legal battle that began in 2000 when a small engineering company called Convolve Inc. in Armonk, N.Y., and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) sued Seagate and Compaq Computer Corp. for allegedly stealing Convolve's patented software motion control technology. Convolve licensed the "Input Shaping" technology that MIT had developed. The technology reduced vibrations and could make computers run more quickly and quietly.

Now, nearly 10 years later, Galloway has come forward. A former engineer at Seagate, Galloway said Seagate management distributed Convolve's technology at the company without telling its engineers that it was covered by a non-disclosure agreement, according to the court document filed by Debra Brown Steinberg, an attorney for Convolve.

Seagate incorporated the technology into its own designs, he claims. Seagate also deliberately destroyed the source code and took his personal computer with all his work on it while he was temporarily transferred to Seagate Singapore in 2000 and 2001, according to Steinberg's filing. When Galloway returned to the Twin Cities in 2001, his personal computer was gone.

Galloway said he "would not have worked on the competing technology" if he had known it was covered by a non-disclosure agreement.

Steinberg said she couldn't discuss the case. She filed a motion on Nov. 30 asking the judge to include Galloway's affidavit in the case. She has also asked for a trial date within 90 days after a Jan. 20 conference that is scheduled in court in New York.

"In this and so many other ways, defendants have subjected plaintiffs to nearly a decade of scorched-earth tactics intended to crush Convolve, bankrupt its founder Dr. Singer, stonewall discovery, and avoid trial at any cost," Steinberg said in the Nov. 30 filing.

Seagate wouldn't comment on the case or discuss the terms of Galloway's departure in July.

Galloway appears to have moved to Colorado a few years ago and worked as an engineering director at Seagate's facility in Longmont, Colo.

Galloway did not return a call seeking comment. His lawyers at Sanford Wittels & Heisler also weren't available.