NASA must produce several proprietary documents related to its development of a robotic arm that is the subject of a patent dispute, the Court of Federal Claims ruled.Ross-Hime Designs, a Minnesota company that specializes "in the design and prototyping of humanoid robotic systems," sued NASA in April 2011, claiming that the federal agency had infringed on two of its patents.

The allegedly-infringing technologies, known as "Robonaut 1" and "Robonaut 2," were the product of a joint-development agreement between the federal aerospace agency and General Motors.Both Ross-Hime and NASA originally sought protective orders to protect proprietary information associated with the robots. Ross-Hime balked, however, when the government withheld documents relating to Robonaut 2's design from discovery, calling the information proprietary information.

Specifically, Ross-Hime sought access to drawings and photographs of a space hand model that NASA had placed on display at the 2012 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers International Conference on Robotics and Automation.The government resisted releasing the information, pointing out that its agreement with General Motors required that the designs be kept confidential.Chief Judge Emily Hewitt agreed that NASA deserves to maintain its proprietary designation over some of the disputed documents.