Theft of software concepts: Pakistani doctor sues Siemens for 345 million dollars

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistan doctor has filed a suit for $345 million damages in a civil court against Siemens for the infringement of his intellectual property rights.

Islamabad Civil Judge Aamer Saleem Rana on Saturday fixed April 19 for arguments by the parties in the case.

Dr Syed Iqbal Raza has filed the suit against Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Siemens AG Germany and Siemens Pakistan for stealing software concepts developed by him.

Dr Raza is the brain behind the state of the art medical software Dr SIR 104.

He has been working on the project for the last couple of years with a leading software company and renowned medical personalities in Pakistan.

In September 2000, Dr Raza sent a detailed concept paper on his project to Siemens AG through the German Embassy of Pakistan, to explore joint development of his software.

Dr Raza worked with Siemens Pakistan as a consultant. Siemens AG appreciated the idea but refused joint development and said it was not into software development.

However, one year later Siemens launched a software called Soarian, with features identical to Dr Raza’s software.

Soarian is an embedded analytic software and was launched in 2002 as a free product only in USA by Siemens Medial Solutions, a subsidiary of Siemens AG Germany.

When Dr Raza and his team learnt about Soarian in April 2003, they sent a series of letters and made phone calls to officials of Siemens Medical Solutions USA.

At one point, Siemens invited Dr Raza to a meeting to settle the issue but Dr Iqbal decided to go to a court of law.

Siemens Medical Solutions Health Services Corporation Vice President Bonnie Shuman denied receiving any concept paper from Dr Raza through the German Embassy in Islamabad, despite of the fact that Farrukh Latif, the general manager of Siemens Medical Engineering Department had acknowledged the receipt of the concept paper in July 2001 and sent to Siemens in Germany.

Dr Raza said Siemens virtually renamed his software, which according to him would revolutionise healthcare as there no other tool measured the working capacity of medical staff. —APP

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