Chemicals maker embroiled in trade secrets suit
Tech firm accuses multinational of stealing a control system for industrial manufacturing facilities | 20-year relationship results in supplier suing over breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, and copyright infringement.
The Dow Chemical Company has been accused of taking an Ohio-based technology firm’s confidential information and copyright-protected computer program to develop its own software product.
In a suit—filed November 7 at the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio— ControlSoft claimed that Dow Chemical had misappropriated its computer program MANTRA to develop a direct replacement.
MANTRA, according to the claim, is an advanced process control (APC) system for controlling industrial manufacturing facilities. ControlSoft released MANTRA in 1998.
ControlSoft said that Dow had purchased a licence in 2001 to use the MANTRA software in Dow-owned plants and plants owned by licensees of certain Dow technology.
As part of several contracts between the pair, ControlSoft developed modifications to its program and additional software code specific to Dow processes so that “MANTRA could integrate and execute certain of Dow's legacy process control software code”.
“In doing that—over a course of nearly 20 years—ControlSoft engineers worked hand-in-hand with Dow. This entailed the transmission of a great deal of ControlSoft’s confidential and trade secret information concerning MANTRA and its inner workings to Dow—information Dow was expressly required, under a non-disclosure agreement, to use only with ControlSoft’s authorisation and on ControlSoft’s behalf,” said the suit.
ControlSoft claimed that Dow then improperly used this information and software to develop its own platform, Syrinx.
“Rather than build its own software product from the ground up—as ControlSoft did— Dow wilfully and maliciously exploited ControlSoft’s protected confidential information and intellectual property to facilitate Dow's conversion of MANTRA-controlled plants to Syrinx-controlled plants, to ControlSoft’s injury,” the suit added.
In the suit, ControlSoft brought claims for breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, and copyright infringement.
ControlSoft said that the copying of MANTRA and misuse of its confidential information “unfairly afforded” Dow Chemical competitive advantages it would not otherwise have had.
“Dow undoubtedly saved costs and time during the development of Syrinx by copying MANTRA and misusing ControlSoft’s confidential information,” said the suit.
It added that the misuse and copying allowed Dow Chemical to roll out its Syrinx software without “having to re-train any employees, and without undertaking effort for necessary re-engineering of already deployed APC systems, because Syrinx was so similar to MANTRA that employees could seamlessly switch between the two platforms”.
ControlSoft has asked the court for injunctive relief to stop any further use of Syrinx and damages.
