Goodell DeVries attorneys Richard M. Barnes, Linda S. Woolf, and Matthew D. Kohel obtained partial summary judgment on behalf of a manufacturer of dental products in a complex commercial arbitration involving various contract and intellectual property issues. The claimant alleged that our client breached a consulting agreement by not paying him royalties for a number of inventions that he claims have been incorporated into our client’s products. An invention that was the subject of the motion for partial summary judgment is a super-elastic metal alloy that undergoes a thermal treatment process to enhance its performance attributes. Mr. Barnes, Ms. Woolf, and Mr. Kohel successfully argued that the claimant is not entitled to royalties on this claimed invention because it was acquired by our client in a prior transaction between the parties, rather than the contract at issue in the arbitration.
