From the Philadelphia Business Journal:
The ownership of bird food isn’t mere bird seed to Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. The Marysville lawn-and-garden products manufacturer is suing Avian Advisors LLC, a Fort Worth, Texas-based bird food development business, and its president, Mario Olmos, alleging breach of contract.
Scotts filed two provisional patent applications with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office in June for new bird foods, identifying Olmos as the inventor, according to the lawsuit, which was filed July 30 in U.S. District Court in Columbus. Scotts claims those foods, which weren’t identified, were developed for Scotts while Avian Advisors was a consultant to the company.
Scotts asked Olmos to sign assignment documents, which would transfer the right, title and interest in the products to a Scotts subsidiary. Olmos refused.
Scotts declined to comment on the suit, and Avian Advisors’ lawyer said he expects to suit to be dismissed.
According to the suit, Scotts and Avian Advisors signed a consulting agreement in August 2007 to develop bird foods. The accord stated Scotts would own the patents and intellectual property created for it by Avian Advisors.
They entered a second agreement in April, which also was for the research and development of bird food and also would give Scotts ownership of any inventions. Scotts asked that the assignment documents be signed, but the defendants, through their counsel, “have indicated that other inventions, discoveries or improvements have been developed by Avian Advisors and Olmos during the provision of services to Scotts,” according to the lawsuit.
Scotts is demanding Avian Advisors and Olmos be ordered to carry out their end of the contract and that he sign the assignment documents. The company also wants the two to turn over all inventions, discoveries or improvements, even if they’re not patented. Scotts also is seeking compensatory damages.
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Avian Advisors, decides to terminate contract with The Scotts Company:
Last May 2008, 30 days after the Bird food recall our president Mario Olmos made the decision to terminate the contract with The Scotts Company, and its wild bird food division. The contract was officially terminated on November 2008, after six months required by the contract. Our company is no longer bound doing business with Scotts and does not have any noncompete restriction. We prefer not to comment on the reasons for which the contract was terminated, but our decision was also made based on the integrity and principles of our company and our collaborators.
Avian Advisors is no longer under any contract or conducting bird food research for Scotts Company. Today our company is continuing with new studies and developments in wild feeding behavior, and we expect to continue bringing new developments for a better birding experience in the industry of wild bird foods.
Scotts company filed a lawsuit against Avian Advisors:
Scotts filed two provisional patent applications with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office in June of 2008 for new bird foods, identifying Mario Olmos, president of Avian Advisors as the inventor. According to the lawsuit, which was filed July 30 in U.S. District Court in Columbus. Scotts claims those foods, were developed for Scotts while Avian Advisors was under a contract to the company.
Scotts asked Mario Olmos to sign assignment documents, which would transfer the right, title and interest in the products to a Scotts subsidiary. Olmos refused to sign the initial draft of the assignments presented by Scotts, following the advice of his attorneys who negotiated new assignment documents with language that was acceptable to both Scotts and Avian Advisors. In fact, Scotts filed their lawsuit while attorneys from both parts were reaching negotiation for the assignment documents. Our company has never claimed property of rights of any of the inventions that arouse of the contract with Scotts. We are a consulting, research and development business, we are not a manufacturing company.
Last August 2008 we provided Scotts with the proper assignments documents, but the lawsuit was not dropped by Scotts. We believe the lawsuit was kept on file as a way to continue harassing our company and our president Mario Olmos, and to demand a contract termination release be signed as a condition to dropping the suit, a suit which Scotts has much deeper pockets than Avian Advisors, to fund. After leaving the suit on-file in district court for almost six months, neither Avian Advisors nor Mario Olmos has been served.
According to Dan Eaton from the Columbus Business First "Scotts declined to comment on the suit, Avian Advisors lawyer said he expects to suit to be dismissed".
Please contact us at info@avianadvisors.com with your comments or questions.
Avian Advisors LLC.
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