Broken Arrow-Based Skycam Accuses Former Employee Of Stealing Ideas

Dan Bewley, News On 6

TULSA, Oklahoma -- Two Tulsa companies are battling in court, one claiming the other stole its ideas. SkyCam is a longtime player in the world of televised sports. It's suing a former employee who started a similar company.

SkyCam was developed in the 1980's and bought by Broken Arrow-based Winnercomm in 2005.

It was around then when P.J. Bennett was hired to research the aerial camera and make improvements.  For a year he worked on the SkyCam system and was eventually let go for failing to work on a particular weekend.

Attorneys for SkyCam say within a month of being terminated he already had a business plan to create Actioncam and build his own aerial camera.

Actioncam now boasts of covering rodeos, basketball games, and baseball games.

SkyCam attorney's told jurors in federal court Monday that Bennett had access to trade secrets and took confidential information from his computer when he left the company.

But Bennett's attorney says the same information that SkyCam claims is confidential is already in the public domain and available online or in SkyCam's own promotional videos.

He says this is simply a case of SkyCam being upset that it's losing a virtual monopoly in the world of televised sports.

SkyCam is asking the jury to award it monetary damages. It says it lost business because Actioncam stole its designs.

The trial is expected to last three weeks.