After about a year of development and testing, Lucent had good news for the inventors: The device passed all the tests, shaming a competing, clunky design that French says resembled an old thermos. But when the inventors got on the phone with Lucent's lawyers to discuss license terms, the company dropped a bomb. "Almost the first thing they said was, 'Well, we don't have to do anything, because this is under some sort of provision for military secret stuff where we don't have to pay anything,'" says French.

French felt betrayed. "This was after a year of encouragement, with me helping them and them informing us of their progress," says French. "That was one hell of a shock."

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Judge E. Richard Webber granted the government's request immediately, and blocked the Crater inventors from obtaining any information from Lucent or the feds about the government's alleged use of the Crater Coupler or any other coupling device. In the legal battle that followed, it emerged that the order covered an astonishing 26,000 documents -- some of which were not only unclassified, but had already been entered into the public record. In 2002, Webber examined those documents in chambers, and concluded that not one of them would be available for Crater's use in pressing its case.

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