Alleged Use of Meshtastic's Developments by Rostech

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Today, I made a distressing discovery. It appears that Rostech, a Russian state corporation, has allegedly utilized the developments of Meshtastic, presenting them as their own creation.

They introduced a mesh terminal, which, to my observation, seems to be significantly based on Meshtastic’s technology. From the picture of the T-Beam and the 3D printed case, it’s quite evident. Moreover, the screen in the image clearly shows the familiar interface of Meshtastic, further strengthening my suspicion.

While I understand that initiating legal proceedings against a state corporation like Rostech could be a daunting task, I believe it’s worth consideration. At the very least, it may serve to increase Meshtastic’s visibility, as our work would gain exposure in a broader context.

It’s quite disheartening and embarrassing to witness such conduct from an entity in my home country. Still, I think it’s crucial to bring this issue to the attention of our Meshtastic community.

Additionally, I would like to share an official news release from Rostech, titled “Rostech developed an independent data transmission network for drones and industrial objects.” Here’s a brief summary:

"RosElectronics, a holding of Rostech Corporation, developed a terminal for information exchange in a closed network. This device allows the creation of an autonomous information space for real-time transmission of telemetry data, text messages, and coordinates without relying on the internet and cell networks.

The terminal is based on a self-organizing distributed mesh-type network, developed by engineers of Inteltech, a part of RosElectronics. It collects data from 16 different sensors and ensures information transmission to a computer or smartphone via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. The solution allows the transmission of telemetry readings and short text messages up to 256 bytes. It also identifies the coordinates of devices connected to the network using GPS and GLONASS. The areas of application include data collection about environmental emissions, monitoring the technical condition of industrial objects, and controlling personnel activity."

You can read the full news release on their official website here.

I welcome your thoughts and suggestions on how we can address this situation.

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Thank you so much for sharing with the community! I’m not an expert in international business law, do you have any suggestions for where Meshtastic would theoretically begin this kind of proceeding? I’m not sure which organization would have jurisdiction over this kind of IP theft.

Maybe a question for the community as a whole, especially given that Meshtastic is open source, what sort of recourse would we be looking for? Clearly this is close-sourcing of the code and as such is in violation of the licensing.

If we’re looking for recognition of the theft, I’m wondering if getting some news agency on the story would be more effective than a lawsuit. Definitely would love people’s thoughts on all of this though.

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I’ve crafted a post regarding this situation and shared it on Habr, the most renowned IT platform in Russia. «Ростех» разработал «независимую сеть передачи данных для беспилотников» / Habr

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Please don’t even bother getting caught up in this, this could be an attempt to distract and drain your resources by our own IC (intelligence community) just let it ride, it’s an open source project, the truth always comes out in the wash. So some foreign company wants to try to supposedly claim intellectual property rights, let them. This is a powerful project and brings freedom and power back to we the people, it most certainly is not going to be liked by the IC, so personally I don’t think this avenue of interest is worth your time.

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Russia is at war with Ukraine and subject to severe sanctions put in place by the U.S., UK, and EU countries. Russia is doing everything possible to support the war effort, offset the loss of foreign corporations, reduce the impact of software and hardware engineers, and circumvent supply chain restrictions.

Claiming an open source project as an internally developed product is just part of this effort, even more so as MeshTastic has practical applications on the battlefield.

Unfortunately, any legal effort will be a waste of time and money.