Wilson Aerospace LLC’s Startup Lawsuit Against Boeing

Wilson Aerospace’s lawsuit against Boeing is a trade secret, copyright, and breach of contract case filed in June 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, in which the small Colorado toolmaker alleges Boeing stole its proprietary designs for specialized aerospace tools and used them on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and the International Space Station. The case is active before Judge John H. Chun as of mid-2026, with core claims still alive after a mixed ruling on Boeing’s motion to dismiss and a recent discovery setback that cost Wilson its attorney-client privilege over a large document production.¹

Who Wilson Aerospace Is

Wilson Aerospace is a family-run machine-tool and metal-cutting company based in the Boulder, Colorado area, founded by University of Colorado-Boulder graduate David Wilson Jr. Over more than 30 years it has built tools for General Motors, nuclear plants, and refineries, and worked with NASA on projects including emergency egress equipment for the Mir space station and a tool used in Hubble Space Telescope repairs.²

Wilson began working with Boeing in the late 1990s. Between 2014 and 2016 the two companies collaborated more closely, and Wilson developed what it calls its flagship product: the third-generation Fluid Fitting Torque Device, or FFTD-3, a tool designed to tighten and loosen fittings in tight, hard-to-reach places on spacecraft. Boeing wanted it for mounting engines on the SLS rocket, the core launch vehicle for NASA’s Artemis moon program.³ Wilson alleges that once Boeing had the proprietary designs, it abruptly severed the relationship.²

What Wilson Accuses Boeing of Doing

The complaint describes what Wilson’s attorneys call a “bait-and-switch” scheme. Boeing, they allege, solicited confidential technical details under nondisclosure and proprietary information agreements while dangling the prospect of lucrative future contracts, then cut ties and tried to replicate Wilson’s tools on its own.²

The specific trade secrets Wilson says were taken went beyond anything disclosed in a patent filing: process coatings, gear train pitch, gear pressure angles, ratchet geometry, and fastener configurations tailored to Boeing’s applications. Wilson also alleges that Boeing employee James Brodhead filed a 2020 U.S. patent application for an “Offset Torque Multiplier” incorporating proprietary information from a separate tool, the Dreamliner Bolting Tool, which Wilson had shared under a 2012 nondisclosure agreement.⁴

The complaint goes further, alleging active concealment. Wilson says Boeing invited employees of Wilson’s direct competitors to a private 2014 demonstration of the FFTD-3, misidentifying them as Boeing personnel to gain them access to a proprietary presentation. Wilson refers to these individuals as “Bogus Boeing Employees.” Boeing’s internal records, the complaint alleges, listed some competitor employees as “Wilson employees” with authority to make management decisions about Wilson’s own tools.⁴ Wilson also claims Boeing altered company records to remove references to Wilson Aerospace and identified tools Wilson had built for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft as having been produced by a different company.²

Boeing denied the accusations when the lawsuit was filed, calling the complaint “rife with inaccuracies and omissions” and pledging to “vigorously defend against this in court.”²

The Artemis and Space Station Safety Claims

The most attention-grabbing allegation in the complaint ties Boeing’s conduct to NASA’s Artemis moon program. Wilson claims that because Boeing replicated its tools without complete instructions for manufacturing, installing, and using them, the resulting products were “inferior” and contained “critical safety flaws.” Mismatched components, Wilson alleges, contributed to the hydrogen leaks that plagued the Artemis 1 fueling attempts in 2022, delaying the rocket’s launch and costing NASA hundreds of millions of dollars. The complaint also claims one variation of the FFTD became stuck on the International Space Station because Boeing used incorrect calibration data when copying the tool.³

Independent reporting on the Artemis 1 hydrogen leaks attributed those problems to issues with the quick disconnect arm on the mobile launch tower and a possible errant valve command during chill-down procedures, without mentioning Wilson Aerospace or counterfeit tooling.⁵ Whether Wilson’s tools played any role in the launch difficulties is an unproven allegation.

Boeing serves as the prime contractor for SLS core and upper stage production under a contract worth approximately $3.2 billion, with work extending through at least 2028.⁶

What Wilson Is Seeking

Wilson’s attorney, Pete Flowers, has described the harm to the company as “hundreds of millions of dollars,” while acknowledging that the full scope is “hard to quantify.”³ The complaint alleges Boeing used the misappropriated technology to win billions in government contract awards and fees, and Wilson seeks damages equal to the profits Boeing made from the unauthorized use of its designs.² Both sides have demanded a jury trial.⁷

What the Court Has Ruled So Far

Boeing moved to dismiss, and on August 1, 2024, Judge Chun issued a mixed ruling that significantly narrowed the case while keeping its central claims alive.⁴

Four categories of claim survived. Trade secret misappropriation tied to the FFTD-3 was allowed to proceed, but only for information Wilson had communicated to Boeing that was not included in its patent applications, such as gear train specifications and ratchet geometry. Trade secret claims tied to the Dreamliner Bolting Tool also survived, with the court finding that Brodhead’s 2020 patent filing plausibly connected the earlier alleged theft to a more recent act of misappropriation. A copyright infringement claim over a 2023-registered work created in 2014 remained in the case, as did breach of contract and negligent misrepresentation.

The dismissed claims were extensive. The court threw out Wilson’s claims under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act, the Lanham Act (trademark and counterfeiting), RICO, and the Washington Consumer Protection Act, along with civil conspiracy, fraud, tortious interference, and unjust enrichment counts. Most were dismissed without prejudice, giving Wilson a chance to try again. One trade secret claim was dismissed with prejudice: the court ruled that Wilson forfeited trade secret protection for information included in patent applications because it had not requested that the Patent Office keep those applications confidential.⁴ Wilson was given until August 30, 2024, to file a second amended complaint.

A subsequent ruling in March 2025 preserved the copyright and trade secret claims while dismissing the trademark and counterfeiting allegations.⁸

The Privilege Waiver Setback

Wilson took a serious procedural hit in early 2026. During discovery, it produced 31,393 documents totaling more than 135,000 pages on November 4, 2025. Boeing flagged 181 documents that appeared to contain privileged attorney-client communications, and when the parties could not resolve the dispute informally, Boeing moved for a ruling that Wilson had waived privilege over the entire production.⁹

On February 23, 2026, the court agreed with Boeing. Judge Chun found that Wilson had failed to show it took reasonable steps to screen privileged materials before handing them over. The production included files with names like “Complaint Draft” and “Damage Estimate Summary,” stored in folders labeled “Lawsuit” and “Lawsuit Research,” with some documents carrying explicit “attorney-client privilege” warnings on the first page. Wilson refused to disclose the specific search terms it had used during review, arguing the terms themselves were privileged work product, a position the court found unsupported by any legal authority.⁹

The practical result is that Boeing now has access to documents that would normally be shielded, including internal legal strategy and damage calculations. The ruling does not affect the merits of Wilson’s underlying claims, but for a small company litigating against one of the world’s largest defense contractors, losing that protection over a broad swath of internal work product is a meaningful blow.

Where the Case Stands Now

As of June 2026, the case remains active before Judge Chun with no public settlement or trial date on the docket.¹ The surviving claims are trade secret misappropriation for both the FFTD-3 and the Dreamliner Bolting Tool, copyright infringement, breach of contract, and negligent misrepresentation. David Wilson Jr. has framed the stakes personally: “Boeing has not only stolen our intellectual property and damaged our company’s reputation but has used the technology incorrectly and at the expense of astronauts’ safety, which is beyond despicable.”¹⁰

1
CourtListener. Wilson Aerospace LLC v. The Boeing Company Inc
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Aero-News Network. Wilson Aerospace Sues Boeing Over Alleged IP Theft
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CNBC. Wilson Aerospace Sues Boeing Over Allegedly Stolen IP for NASA Projects
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Justia. Wilson Aerospace LLC v. The Boeing Company Inc, Order on Motion to Dismiss
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Supercluster. Fuel Leak Grounds NASA’s Artemis 1 Mission
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NASA. NASA Commits to Future Artemis Moon Rocket Production
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CourtListener. Wilson Aerospace LLC v. The Boeing Company Inc, Parties
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Law360. Wilson Aerospace LLC v. The Boeing Company Inc Case Articles
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EDRM. Privilege Waived Because Pre-Production Measures Were Not Shown to Be Reasonable
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The Denver Post. Colorado Aerospace Company Wilson Sues Boeing