Apple has urged a California appeals panel to uphold its summary judgment win Thursday in a case brought by an environmental consulting company claiming the tech giant ripped off its chemical formula for an iPhone design, reports Bloomberg Law.
Michael von Loewenfeldt, partner with Complex Appellate Litigation Group (CALG) on behalf of Apple, said Envirodigm Inc. failed to even outline the formula in sufficient detail in its trade secret documents.
“First off, if you don’t disclose it in your trade secret disclosure,” as precedent holds, “you lose the claim,” von Loewenfeldt said. “That’s what happened here, plain and simple.”
The colored aluminum body for one of the 2015 iPhone model used Envirodigm’s proprietary anodization formula in violation of a non-disclosure agreement struck after Apple meet with the consulting company’s owner for design help, Environodigm clams.
However, the company’s failure to state in its own disclosure the chemical ratio it claims Apple used is fatal to its case, von Loewenfeldt said during oral argument. He said California case law supports that undisclosed or vaguely described trade secrets can’t form the basis for misappropriation claims.”
Envirodigm is an environmental technology company focused on cradle-to-cradle lifecycle management. It partners with corporate manufacturing facilities to transition industrial and hazardous solid wastes into reusable resources
CALG previously represented Apple in a Sixth District California Court of Appeal win and successfully opposed a petition for review at the California Supreme Court.
Article provided with permission from AppleWorld.Today
