California: Craig Vincent sentenced for copyright infringement, selling NavData updates on eBay
A California man was sentenced Monday to serve three years on federal probation for unlawfully selling copyrighted aviation data updates, U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister said. In addition, the defendant was ordered to pay more than $30,000 in restitution.
Craig M. Vincent, 51, Stockton, Calif., pleaded guilty to one count of criminal infringement of a copyright.
In his plea, Vincent admitted he used eBay to resell aviation navigational database updates in violation of Jeppesen Company’s licensing agreement for a trademarked product called NavData. Jeppesen is a Boeing subsidiary. Jeppesen’s NavData includes airport information, runway characteristics, waypoints, arrival routes, departure routes, terminal procedures and general information that a Global Positioning System or flight management computer needs to navigate an airplane to final destination.
Jeppesen sold NavData subscriptions to Kansas-based Garmin, Inc. Doing business as Merlin Enterprises, Vincent sold NavData cards and required customers to return old data cards to him.
McAllister commended the FBI and Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Oakley for their work on the case.
