Kamdem-Ouaffo v. Pepsico, Inc.
| Decision Date | 09 March 2015 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 14-CV-227 (KMK) |
| Parties | RICKY KAMDEM-OUAFFO, Plaintiff, v. PEPSICO, INC., DR. PETER S. GIVEN, JR., DR. NAIJIE ZHANG, JOHN DOE, and/or JANE DOE, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Appearances:
Ricky Kamdem-Ouaffo
New Brunswick, NJ
Pro se Plaintiff
Robert Lawrence Maier
Jennifer Cozeolino Tempesta
Richard Benjamin Harper
Baker Botts LLP
New York, NY
Pro se Plaintiff Ricky Kamdem-Ouaffo ("Plaintiff") filed this Action in January 2013 against Defendants Pepsico, Inc. ("PepsiCo"), Dr. Peter S. Given, Jr. ( ), Dr. Naijie Zhang ("Dr. Zhang"), John Doe, and/or Jane Doe in January 2013. (Dkt. No. 1). Plaintiff alleges several causes of action arising out of his employment at PepsiCo, arguing principally that PepsiCo employees fraudulently commandeered his intellectual property. Before the Court is Defendants' Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's First Amended Complaint. For the foregoing reasons, Defendants' Motion is granted, and Plaintiff's First Amended Complaint is dismissed.
Plaintiff, a resident of New Brunswick, New Jersey, has "professional experience" in the "research and development, manufacturing, analysis[,] and application of flavors and aromas," as well as "flavor encapsulation[] and the use applications of edible film formers." From July 14, 2008 to September 28, 2009, Plaintiff worked as a "Food Scientist contractor at PepsiCo's Research and Development facility in Valhalla, New York." (Id. ¶ 22.) In that capacity, Plaintiff was tasked with "provid[ing] leadership and strategy for developing [and] evaluating commercially viable Aroma Technology Delivery System[s] applicable to PepsiCo's commercial items." (Id. ¶ 27.)
Prior to starting with PepsiCo, Plaintiff was required to sign a "Staffing Supplier Employee Agreement Regarding Confidentiality and Intellectual Property" ("Agreement") "with Pepsico through Subex Technologies, Inc." ("Subex"), the "contract [s]taffing [a]gency." (Id. ¶ 23.) Plaintiff signed the Agreement on July 8, 2008, at which time a Subex manager "explained to . . . Plaintiff . . . that the [A]greement . . . meant that . . . Plaintiff in principle consented to assigning his future intellectual property to PepsiCo for commercial use inexchange for payment to be made to . . . Plaintiff during the course of the contract." (Id. ¶¶ 23-24.) At the same time, Plaintiff alleges that there was a "common understanding" that if Plaintiff created intellectual property during the period of his contract that was patentable, "PepsiCo would . . . credit . . . Plaintiff" as the inventor. (Id. ¶ 25.)
During the period of Plaintiff's employment, Plaintiff "pioneered, conceptualized, designed, demonstrated, proved, executed, and implemented aroma concepts, technologies, and techniques . . . that none of [PepsiCo's] employees [had] been able to do prior to Plaintiff's work." (Id. ¶ 29.) Plaintiff also "filled up five to seven [l]aboratory [n]otebooks," and created "scientific reports and . . . computer data" pertaining to his inventions. (Id. ¶ 85.) Plaintiff received $82,142 in compensation for his work, or $56,384 in take-home pay, which amounted to only a percentage of the $133,007.50 Plaintiff alleges he is owed under an unsigned purchase order ("Purchase Order"). (Id. ¶¶ 52-53, 186-87.)2
At some point prior to or on September 16, 2009, Defendants, at the direction of PepsiCo senior managers, "removed . . . Plaintiff's name from" intellectual property Plaintiff created during his period of employment at PepsiCo. (Id. ¶¶ 32, 34.) In subsequent patent applications, PepsiCo credited the inventions to Dr. Given and Dr. Zhang, despite the fact that they allegedly did not "contribute to the creation" of that property. (Id. ¶ 32.) Plaintiff alleges that Dr. Zhang was not an employee of PepsiCo when Plaintiff "created and conceptualized hisinventions and reduced them to practice," and that Dr. Given provided "no intellectual input or supervision" during that time. (Id. ¶ 33.)
Plaintiff further alleges that the removal of his name from his inventions was part of a coordinated attempt by PepsiCo to distance itself from Plaintiff. On the same day that PepsiCo managers removed Plaintiff's name, Dr. Given allegedly sent an email to his colleagues which said: " " (Id. ¶ 8 () (italics omitted).)3 Dr. Zhang allegedly sent a similar email, stating that " " (Id. ¶ 9 () (italics omitted).) PepsiCo's Vice President of Research and Development, Valerie Jacklin, allegedly wrote to Dr. Given and the Director of the Ingredient Technology group, echoing Dr. Zhang's sentiment when noting that she was "'[n]ot [s]ure [they] [w]ant [Plaintiff] [o]n [t]he [i]nvention [l]ist.'" (Id. ¶ 255 (italics omitted).) An unnamed PepsiCo employee also allegedly entered a notation in Plaintiff's personnel file reading "Dept. not satisfied," suggesting Plaintiff's work was unsatisfactory. (Id. ¶ 38 (italics omitted).)
On or around September 23, 2009, five days before the expiration of Plaintiff's contract, Plaintiff alleges that he was told by an unnamed human resources manager that he was "'culturally unfit'" for employment because he was "a black male [with] an opinion on scientific matters that was contrary to that of his peers of [another] skin color," and that he "needed to becoached." (Id. ¶ 64-66.)4 Plaintiff likewise alleges that PepsiCo's decision not to credit Plaintiff for his alleged inventions stemmed from "stereotypes and racial clichés about . . . Plaintiff as a person of . . . black skin." (Id. ¶ 257.) A few months later, on December 18, 2009, Plaintiff alleges that Defendants wrote in a "Statement of Position" made to a United States government agency that "Plaintiff was not able to do work, and was not creative . . . by comparison to [his] counter parts [sic] of . . . other . . . race[s]." (Id. ¶¶ 67, 257.) Plaintiff claims that Defendants "represent[ed] that . . . Plaintiff went to work only to look for opportunities for predatory sexual intercourse activity on women." (Id. ¶ 258; see also id. ¶ 68.)
On September 28, 2009, Plaintiff's employment contract ended and was not renewed. (Id. ¶¶ 35-36.)5 At the expiration of his contract, Plaintiff sent a letter to PepsiCo management in which he made an "'authorship claim on any current or future work resulting in . . . flavor encapsulates or . . . aroma delivery systems because [he] single-handedly demonstrated the need for [them] when no one at PepsiCo had [them] in mind . . . ." (Id. ¶ 62 () (italics omitted).) Thereafter, PepsiCo filed for five patents with the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") based on the intellectual property at issue, one of which, a patent application for "Releasable Entrapment of Aroma Using Polymeric Matrix," was granted on July 2, 2013 (US Patent No. 8,474,637 B2). 6 Inconnection with the patent applications, Dr. Given and Dr. Zhang allegedly each signed or cosigned "Inventor's Oath[s] or Declaration[s]," including a "Joint Inventor's Declaration," for the granted patent. (Id. ¶¶ 44-48.) Dr. Given and Dr. Zhang each also allegedly executed and filed an assignment of the relevant intellectual property to PepsiCo. (Id. ¶¶ 49-50.)
On October 11, 2012, Plaintiff submitted a request to PepsiCo, asking that it amend the patent applications at issue "from which [it] . . . expunged . . . Plaintiff's name" to include his name. (Id. ¶ 55.) PepsiCo did not reply to this request, nor did it make the desired amendment. (Id. ¶ 59.)7 Nonetheless, Plaintiff alleges that he is the "true inventor" of both the patented property and the property described in the four pending patent applications. (Id. ¶¶ 60, 91, 106.)
Plaintiff filed the instant Action on January 31, 2014. (Dkt. No. 1.) On March 14, 2014, the same day that Defendants first requested a pre-motion conference, (Dkt. No. 8), Plaintiff filed his First Amended Complaint, alleging thirteen causes of action, namely "breach of intellectual property agreement," "wrongful appropriation of plaintiff's intellectual property," "fraudulent obtaining of signature," "correction of inventorship," "unjust enrichment," "the necessity of constructive trusts," a "request for subpoenas," three causes of action relating to alleged false statements made to the USPTO, and three causes of actions relating to other alleged criminal conduct. (See Dkt. No. 9.) On March 26, 2014, Defendants filed two letters requesting a pre-motion conference. (Dkt Nos. 19, 20.) The Court granted Defendants' request, (Dkt. No. 21),and at the pre-motion conference held on May 15, 2014, the Court set a briefing schedule for Defendants' Motion to Dismiss, (see Dkt. (minute entry for May 15, 2014)). Defendants filed their Motion To Dismiss and Memorandum of Law on June 6, 2014, (Dkt. Nos. 34, 35), and an associated Declaration on June 9, 2014, (Dkt. No. 37). On July 9, 2014, Plaintiff submitted a "Notice of Counterclaim . . . in Support of the Denial of the Defendants' Motion to Dismiss," and an Affidavit and Memorandum of Law in support of that submission. (Dkt. Nos. 41, 42, 43.)8 Plaintiff also filed a "Proposed Order [G]ranting . . . Plaintiff's Counterclaim" on July 10, 2014. (Dkt. No. 44.) Defendants filed their Reply on August 8, 2014. (Dkt. No. 46.)
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