Ashton-Tate Corp. v. Ross
| Decision Date | 04 October 1990 |
| Docket Number | ASHTON-TATE,No. 89-15683,89-15683 |
| Citation | 916 F.2d 516 |
| Parties | , 1990 Copr.L.Dec. P 26,640, 16 U.S.P.Q.2d 1541 CORPORATION, a Delaware corporation, Plaintiff-Counterdefendant-Appellee, v. Richard ROSS; Bravo Technologies, Inc., a California corporation, Defendants-Counterclaimants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Paul N. McCloskey, Jr., McCloskey & Kays, Menlo Park, Cal., for defendants-counterclaimants-appellants.
Gary L. Reback, Fenwick, Davis & West, Palo Alto, Cal., for plaintiff-counterdefendant-appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
Before CHOY, WIGGINS and LEAVY, Circuit Judges.
This appeal involves a dispute over the copyright ownership of a computer spreadsheet program called "Full Impact" and the alleged misappropriation of Appellants' trade secrets by Ashton-Tate. The district court published its order granting summary judgment on all claims in favor of Ashton-Tate. Ashton-Tate v. Ross, 728 F.Supp. 597 (N.D.Cal.1989). Appellants, Richard Ross and his company Bravo Technologies, Inc., argue that the district court abused its discretion by refusing to consider their supplemental brief in opposition to the summary judgment motion. They also argue that the district court erred in any event by declaring Ashton-Tate the sole owner of the copyright in Full Impact. Finally, they argue that the district court should not have ruled that their trade secret claims were time-barred. We affirm.
In September 1984 appellant Richard Ross (Ross) decided to collaborate with Randy Wigginton (Wigginton) on the development of a computer spreadsheet program for the Apple Macintosh computer. Ross alleged that he and Wigginton agreed that Ross would work on the "engine," or computational component of the program, and Wigginton would work on the user interface portion. During September 1984 through February of 1985, Ross and Wigginton worked on their respective portions of the program. They also met on at least two occasions to discuss ideas and concepts for the program. At one of these meetings, Ross gave Wigginton a handwritten list of user commands he felt the interface should contain. The actual writing of the user interface portion of the program was done by Wigginton, however. Ross did all the writing of the computational half of the program.
Ross and Wigginton had not entered into any formal or written contract other than a nondisclosure of proprietary information agreement. In February 1985 the collaborators started to disagree about how they would publish and market their new program. Ross wanted to publish and distribute the product using his independent company, Bravo Technologies. Wigginton apparently wanted a more established company to publish and market the program.
In March, Wigginton made a presentation to employees of Ashton-Tate, one of the Nation's largest software publishers, to see if Ashton-Tate might be interested in publishing the spreadsheet program he and Ross were developing. When Ross learned of Wigginton's meeting with Ashton-Tate, he confronted Wigginton on March 28, 1985. According to Ross, once it became clear to Wigginton that Ross and Bravo were not interested in having Ashton-Tate publish the spreadsheet, Wigginton informed Ross that he was going to work for Ashton-Tate and was going to take the user interface portion of the MacCalc prototype with him.
In April 1985 Wigginton did go to work for Ashton-Tate. He and his company, "Encore," continued to work on the user interface and adapted it for use with a new engine from a program called "Alembic," which Ashton-Tate already had an interest in. Eventually, the combination of Wigginton's user interface and the adapted Alembic engine became the "Full Impact" spreadsheet program released by Ashton-Tate. Meanwhile, Ross worked on his spreadsheet program. By June of 1986, he completed work on a user interface to combine with his engine and published "MacCalc."
On April 17, 1985, Ross met with representatives of Ashton-Tate to discuss working on an Ashton-Tate program for IBM personal computers. Ross signed Ashton-Tate's nondisclosure agreement and Micheal Stone of Ashton-Tate signed Bravo's, Ross's company. According to Ross, Stone asked about the MacCalc product, whereupon Ross obtained Stone's assurance that the nondisclosure agreement would cover any discussion about MacCalc. Ross also claims that he subsequently received confirmation from Roy Folk, an outside consultant to Ashton-Tate and the other person at the meeting, that the nondisclosure agreement covered Wigginton's earlier demonstration of the MacCalc prototype.
In June 1985, Ross wrote to Stone to express concern that Ashton-Tate was using his and Bravo's proprietary information to help develop a spreadsheet program. Ross received no response to this inquiry. Ross also alleges that in June 1987 Dave Stephenson, a marketing manager at Ashton-Tate, contacted Ross to discuss the possibility of Ross assisting in the development of a Macintosh spreadsheet program tentatively called "Glass." Ross claims to have again expressed concern about Ashton-Tate's possible use of Bravo's proprietary information. Ross asserts that Stephenson assured him things would be worked out and that there was only a "fifty-fifty" chance that Ashton-Tate would actually complete "Glass." Ross claims to have discussed his concerns with other Ashton-Tate executives during 1987, and to have received assurances from each one.
Ashton-Tate neither acknowledges nor denies that it approached Ross about working on the engine of the Glass project, but denies that Ross was given any assurances. Ashton-Tate insists that Ross fabricated these assurances to avoid summary judgment, and that his allegations flatly contradicted his earlier deposition testimony.
On June 12, 1988, Ross demanded that Ashton-Tate compensate him and Bravo for their contribution to the Full Impact program. On July 20, 1988, Ashton-Tate filed its complaint for declaratory relief. Ross and Bravo responded by filing their answer and counterclaims on August 24, 1988.
At a status conference on October 19, 1988, Ashton-Tate notified Ross and Bravo that it intended to file a motion for summary judgment. On December 22, 1988, Ashton-Tate filed its summary judgment motion. Appellants Ross and Bravo filed their response on January 11, 1989.
At the January 25 hearing on Ashton-Tate's summary judgment motion, Ross and Bravo requested additional time so an expert could examine recently produced evidence to determine whether the engine portion of the Full Impact program utilized source code from the MacCalc prototype. The court granted Ross and Bravo their request for additional time, but only for the purpose of determining whether development of the Full Impact engine had relied on the engine from the MacCalc prototype.
Ross and Bravo filed their supplemental brief in opposition to Ashton-Tate's summary judgment motion on February 24, 1989. The material submitted, which included declarations from experts Lang and Hoffman, did not comply with the district court's order granting additional time. Ross and Bravo requested that the district court consider their supplemental brief under Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(f). They asked the district court to consider the brief because the information forming the basis of the declarations contained therein was not available during the drafting of their original opposition brief.
The district court rejected Ross and Bravo's Rule 56(f) motion in an order dated March 31, 1985. It held that the motion was not timely made, that the expert declarations were cumulative of material already presented in opposition to the summary judgment motion, and that Ross and Bravo failed to show that the foundation evidence for the expert declarations could not have been obtained far enough in advance to incorporate into the initial opposition brief. The district court therefore refused to consider the supplemental brief except as it related to the issue of source code copying of the engine portion of the MacCalc prototype.
On April 4, 1989, the district court issued a published order granting Ashton-Tate's motion for summary judgment on all issues. 728 F.Supp. 597. The court held that even if there was an agreement to collaborate, Ross's contribution of ideas to the user interface written by Wigginton was insufficient to make Ross a joint author of the interface. 728 F.Supp. at 602.
The district court ruled against Ross and Bravo on their other theories as well, including their state law cause of action for misappropriation of trade secrets by Ashton-Tate. The court made this ruling on the basis that the applicable limitation period had run. Ross and Bravo timely appealed.
I. Did the district court abuse its discretion in denying Ross and Bravo's request to consider additional material in opposition to the summary judgment motion?
II. Did the district court err in holding that Ross and Bravo had no copyright interest in the user interface portion of the Full Impact program?
III. Did the district court err in holding Ross and Bravo's misappropriation of trade secrets action time barred?
Denial of a Rule 56(f) application is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Visa Int'l Service v. Bankcard Holders, 784 F.2d 1472, 1475 (9th Cir.1986). The district court's grant of summary judgment is reviewed de novo. Kruso v. International Tel. & Tel. Corp., 872 F.2d 1416, 1421 (9th Cir.1989), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 3217, 110 L.Ed.2d 664 (1990).
The district court acted well within its discretion in refusing to consider most parts of the belated declarations of Lang and Hoffman. Ross and Bravo failed to invoke Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(f) in a timely manner. At the...
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