Judge rules on HF- Rogers appeal

ERJ staff report (DS)

Ohio - A judge has found partly for and partly against Rogers Industrial Products Inc. in its appeal over allegations it made against HF Rubber Machinery Inc. in connection with curing presses sold to Goodyear in 2003.

Rogers Industrial Products Inc., a manufacturer of tyre curing presses, filed a complaint against HF and its previous incarnations, alleging statutory and common law claims that they misappropriated its trade secrets.

Rogers had made curing presses under licence from Krupp (HF's predecessor name), but had adapted them and offered the adapted version to Goodyear, expecting an order of 57 presses. A prototype, called the H200T was installed at Goodyear's Lawton plant and run for a few months as a test. Meanwhile, Goodyear also contacted other suppliers, including Krupp, and carried out tests on those presses as well.

During the testing period, Rogers heard from Goodyear employees that they preferred the Rogers press because it ran faster and had a longer bladder life than the presses of its competitors.

Although Rogers had hoped that Goodyear would purchase all 57 presses from it, Goodyear ultimately purchased 40 presses from Krupp and only 17 presses from Rogers. Goodyear informed Rogers that it was purchasing more presses from Krupp because it was a larger manufacturer and could produce them faster.

Near the end of 2005, John Cole, the president and owner of Rogers, began hearing that the tyre curing presses that Goodyear had purchased from HF looked like a "cousin" of the Rogers H200T press and not like the HF model that Goodyear had tested at its plant. Cole was concerned about the fact that HF had so quickly and drastically changed the design of its press and the fact that the new design of its loader and unloader was similar to the drawings Rogers had supplied Goodyear.

Cole ultimately learned that, during November 2004, James Bukowski, a Goodyear engineer, took nine pages of assembly drawings from the owner's manual of the Rogers H200T press and gave them to HF. Because Goodyear was impressed with Rogers's top-loading press design, Bukowski allegedly instructed HF to design a press that was similar to Rogers's drawings.

Rogers filed suit against Bukowski and the HF defendants, alleging that the defendants had misappropriated its trade secrets, that HF had copied the confidential design of Rogers's loader and unloader mechanism, and that Rogers had sustained damages as a result. Rogers further maintained that these actions constituted unfair competition, tortious interference with contracts or business relationships, and conversion.

HF admitted they had access to the drawings. But in a summary, the court said, “The primary dispute in this case was whether the information revealed in the drawings constituted trade secrets under Ohio's Uniform Trade Secret Act.”

The trial court ruled in favour of HF, saying that Rogers had made no effort to keep the drawings secret and had disclosed them in a 2004 patent.

Rogers appealed on four points and the appeal court sustained two, but rejected two others.

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Judgment summary from Court of Appeals of Ohio, Ninth District, Summit County.