Toolmaker sues UCSD over machine shop

A businessman is suing the University of California San Diego, saying the university is improperly refusing to release public documents related to its machine shops — which he believes undercut private shops.

The suit was filed by Marc Olsson, owner of a Kearny Mesa business called SeekTech, who believes the campus shops have been competing unfairly for years. Because they get state support, the shops can charge lower prices, he said.

Olsson is asking UCSD to release information about two such shops, one at the Scripps Institute for Oceanography and the second on the school’s campus in La Jolla.

The school has withheld some documents showing what kind of work the shops have done for local businesses, citing a section of state law that protects trade secrets. Olsson’s lawsuit says the school has improperly allowed the businesses themselves to determine if the documents should be released.

The university also has withheld certain records, saying the need to keep records confidential outweighs the public interest in revealing them.

A university spokesman declined to comment on the controversy because of the pending lawsuit. The machine shop’s website says it produces specialized parts for research purposes, items not available elsewhere in the market.

Olsson said the school is violating UC’s policies on when university facilities can be used for outside commercial activities. Olsson and his lawyers say they need the records, showing drawings and specifications for jobs done for non-university customers, to support their claims.

“The UC is basically in the manufacturing business and is competing with small machine shops in San Diego,” Olsson said. “This is a moneymaking exercise for them.”

Both shops do machine work, manufacturing parts for private companies in San Diego such as General Atomics and Teledyne RD.

Lawyers for UCSD argued in a court filing that the school has already turned over thousands of pages to Olsson and his legal team. Moreover, it said the documents won’t shed any light on whether the school is unfairly competing with private companies or following its own policy because they are no more than “specifications for parts so that the machinists can do their job properly.”

Joseph Leventhal, the lawyer who filed the lawsuit, said that the university initially flatly rejected the document request when first asked back in 2011. It said all the records were protected by the trade secret privilege then.

After lawsuits were filed the school agreed to check with customers and ask them if it was OK to release the information.

Doing that is not inappropriate, said Peter Scheer, a public records expert and head of the California First Amendment Coalition, a public access advocacy group.

“Ultimately, that decision can’t be delegated to a third party,” he said. “The decision has to be made by the agency.”

Lawyers for UCSD said in court filings that 23 companies allowed release of the materials. About a dozen have not, and some 300 pages of records sought under the request are being withheld. The university also said it had a good faith belief that the records were protected by the trade secrets rule, and rejected arguments it allowed customers to determine what could or could not be released.

Leventhal and Olsson said that the records they have received so far show that the work the shops are doing doesn’t appear to comply with “Regulation 4,” the UC policy governing how universities do purely commercial work.

That rule states in part, “Routine tasks of a commonplace type will not be undertaken.” Yet that is what Leventhal said much of the work appears to be.

“Some of what they are machining are discs and screws that don’t require specialized machine shops or tools,” he said. “It’s everyday, commercial machining other shops in San Diego can do.”

A hearing on the lawsuit is set for Aug. 15 in San Diego Superior Court.