Certainly is an odd one.  This is exactly what POET is doing and appear way ahead of Lightelligence.  Should this engineer know about POET?? Absolutely they should. POET has been at every major trade show for a number of years now, demo'ing their products.  Could they do more to get the word out? Yes, I suppose they could, Certainly when it comes to retail.  

I think its easy to jump to quickly blaming management for this, rather than accepting that, not all engineers will know about POET.  Personally, this says something about this engineer, as much as it does about management.  

Is it possible that Juniper has a vested interest in this technology and this is no more than greasing the wheels??