ClearOne Communications, Inc. v. Chiang

670 F. Supp. 2d 1248, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 108460, 2009 WL 4034806
District Court, D. Utah·Decided November 19, 2009·No. 2:07-cr-00037·Published·Cited by 3 cases

Opinion

MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER OF CONTEMPT

TENA CAMPBELL, Chief Judge.

This highly acrimonious and heavily litigated trade secret misappropriation case concerns the theft of Plaintiff ClearOne Communications, Inc.’s teleconferencing digital signal processing software (the “Honeybee Code”). Now, a year after the jury issued a verdict for ClearOne (which was followed by the court’s final judgment and permanent injunction), the matter has resulted in several contempt proceedings against certain Defendants and interested parties who continue to possess and use the stolen Honeybee Code while steadfastly attempting to hide their repeated violations of the court’s Preliminary Injunction and other pre- and post-trial orders.

In June and October 2009, the court issued two related orders to show cause, 1 in which the court demanded that the WideBand Defendants 2 and third-parties Donald Bowers, 3 David Sullivan, Wide-Band Georgia, 4 and DialHD, Inc. show good cause why they should not be held in civil contempt for violation of the court’s permanent injunction and post-judgment TRO.

Now, having considered the evidence presented at the two hearings, and for the reasons set forth below, the court finds that ClearOne has not shown by clear and convincing evidence that Andrew Chiang, Versatile, WideBand Georgia, and David Sullivan are in contempt of court. But, ClearOne has shown by clear and convincing evidence that Lonny Bowers, Jun Yang, WideBand Solutions of Massachusetts (“WideBand”), and third-party collaborator DialHD, Inc. (collectively the “Contemnors”) are in contempt of court *1251 for violation of the court’s April 2009 Permanent Injunction and August 2009 Temporary Restraining Order for selling Wide-Band’s Simphonix Si-400 product in the guise of DialHD’s AEC4 and HD4551 products, all of which contain the Honeybee Code. Not only are the Contemnors ordered to pay attorneys’ fees and damages sustained by ClearOne as a result of their contemptuous behavior, but they are required to perform certain acts set forth below in order to purge themselves of their contempt. If they do not purge their contempt in the manner and by the time set forth below, they face coercive incarceration.

I. FINDINGS OF FACT 5

A. Jury Verdict, Permanent Injunction, and TRO

On November 5, 2008, after a two-week trial, the jury issued its special verdict finding that all of the defendants had wilfully and maliciously misappropriated ClearOne’s Honeybee Code trade secret. (See Docket No. 1286.) The jury awarded ClearOne more than ten million dollars in compensatory and punitive damages.

Based on the jury’s verdict, and as part of the court’s final judgment against the Defendants, the court issued its Permanent Injunction on April 8, 2009. The Court’s April 2009 Permanent Injunction expressly restricts, in clear terms, any continued use of the intellectual property that was the subject of the trial, including WideBand’s Simphonix Product:

Each of the WideBand Defendants— Andrew Chiang, Jun Yang, Lonny Bowers, WideBand Solutions, Inc. (“Wide-Band”), and Versatile DSP, Inc. — is hereby permanently enjoined from disclosing, using or transferring in any way the trade secret owned by Plaintiff ClearOne Communications, Inc., called the Honeybee Code (including its unique algorithms or sub-algorithms that are not in the public domain), whether in the form of source code, object code, or any other form, and any code or product substantially derived from the Honeybee Code.
Each of the WideBand Defendants is also permanently enjoined from disclosing, using, or transferring in any way the product development documentation for the Honeybee Code or any other documentation that reveals the contents of the Honeybee Code.
Because the following infringing Products” contain or are substantially derived from the Honeybee Code, they are also subject to the permanent injunction: the AEC2W object code licensed to Biamp Systems Corporation (the Biamp Code); the computer code licensed to Harman Music Group, Inc. that was the subject of the October 30, 2007 Preliminary Injunction Order (the Harman Code); WideBand’s FC101 product; WideBand’s WC301 product; WideBand’s WC301A product; and WideBand’s Simphonix product.
The restrictions listed above include, without limitation, a restriction upon any further marketing, selling, manufacturing, development, modification, duplication, or transport or delivery of technology containing the Honeybee Code or any product substantially derived from the Honeybee Code. These *1252 restrictions also include, without limitation, a restriction upon any further marketing, selling, delivery, and/or use of technology or products containing the Honeybee Code to service any past or existing customers.
The restrictions set forth immediately above apply not only to each of the WideBand Defendants, but also to each of WideBand Defendant’s agents, servants, officers, employees, entities, and those acting in concert with them, and/or those acting under their direction or control, to the fullest extent allowed by law.

(Apr. 8, 2009 Permanent Injunction at 1-3 (emphases added) (Docket No. 1525).)

In July 2009, the court received evidence, culminating in a July 31, 2009 hearing, that certain Defendants and a third-party named DialHD, Inc. (acting in concert with certain Defendants) were surreptitiously selling products utilizing the Honeybee Code, all in violation of the court’s Permanent Injunction. Essentially, DialHD, along with Lonny Bowers and others, was selling products called the AEC4 that were simply a repackaged Simphonix product banned by the court’s Permanent Injunction.

At the end of the July 31, 2009 hearing, the court issued a temporary restraining order, noting as follows:

I BELIEVE, AND I AM CONFIDENT, THAT THE INFORMATION AND EVIDENCE THAT I HAVE HEARD TODAY SHOWS THAT THERE IS A SUBSTANTIAL LIKELIHOOD THAT CLEARONE WOULD PREVAIL ON THE QUESTION OF WHETHER THE PRODUCTS THAT ARE AT ISSUE HERE ARE IN FACT EMPLOYING THE HONEYBEE CODE. THAT BURDEN HAS BEEN MET. AND GIVEN THE EVIDENCE THAT I HAVE BEFORE ME, CLEARLY THE IRREPARABLE HARM THAT CLEARONE WOULD SUFFER IF THE ASSETS WERE TRANSFERRED. AGAIN, THIS T.R.O. MUST ISSUE. NOW, IT’S NARROWLY TAILORED TO THE ONLY TWO PRODUCTS.... HOWEVER, GENTLEMEN, I TELL YOU THAT IF I HAVE EVIDENCE THAT IN THE INTERIM ANY OF THESE PRODUCTS ARE SOLD OR TRANSFERRED, I WILL VIEW THAT AS CONTEMPT WORTHY OF CRIMINAL PROSECUTION.

(July 31, 2009 Hr’g Tr. at 174-75 (emphases added).) On August 5, 2009, the court formalized its oral ruling by entry of a written Temporary Restraining Order and Order from July 31, 2009 Hearing (the “TRO”).

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ClearOne Communications, Inc. v. Chiang, 670 F. Supp. 2d 1248, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 108460, 2009 WL 4034806 (D. Utah 2009).

670 F. Supp. 2d 1248 (ClearOne Communications, Inc. v. Chiang) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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