Question Regarding Grumman Lawsuit

[Moritz]

This could probably be resolved for all model companies and software modelers by reviewing the original procurement/production contracts between the 'Department of War' (now Department of Defense) and the contractors. One may find that the work is deemed to be the property of the Department of War and that there would be no intellectual rights retained by the contractor. This would also go with the fact that all product liability issues related to these would assumed by the government. In fact, if I were arguing this with an attorney, I would contend that the fact that the government absolved the contract from any product liability would be further proof that the government assumed all ownership rights under the contracts.

One other US legal concept is precedent. The fact that the contractors were very willing to allow models to be made for 50 years prior to getting greedy. One example I remember from my youth was teh 1/48 B-17G from Monogram, where in the original 1976-7 instruction sheet had a booklet on how Boeing and workers from WWII era voluntarily provided the documents and worked with Monogram to ensure the accuracy of the kit.