Picazio v. Melvin K. Silverman & Associates, P.C.

965 F. Supp. 2d 1411, 2013 WL 4714171, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126845
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Florida
DecidedAugust 30, 2013
DocketCase No. 13-80041-CIV
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 965 F. Supp. 2d 1411 (Picazio v. Melvin K. Silverman & Associates, P.C.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Picazio v. Melvin K. Silverman & Associates, P.C., 965 F. Supp. 2d 1411, 2013 WL 4714171, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126845 (S.D. Fla. 2013).

Opinion

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO DISMISS

DONALD M. MIDDLEBROOKS, District Judge.

THIS CAUSE comes before the Court upon Defendants’, Melvin K. Silverman and Associates, P.C., and Melvin K. Silver-man, individually, Motion to Dismiss [DE 35] (“Motion”) filed on July 19, 2013. The Plaintiff filed a Response [DE 36] on August 5, 2013 and the Defendants filed a Reply [DE 38] on August 14, 2013. The Court has reviewed the Motion and subsequent pleadings and is otherwise fully informed in the premises.

I. Background

The Plaintiff, Michael J. Picazio, (“Picazio”) filed the instant action against three Defendants, one of whom has since been dismissed upon stipulation. The original complaint was dismissed upon consent, and Picazio filed an Amended Complaint (the “Complaint”) on June 20, 2013 against the two remaining Defendants named above (hereinafter “Silverman”). In his Complaint, Picazio claims to be the “inventor” of a machine that “quickly and economically separate^] brown grease waste material found in grease traps from the water with which it [is] mixed.” (Compl. at ¶ 7). This technology, according to Picazio, is novel, provides an environmentally friendly manner to recycle waste materials, and was designed to assist, in part, municipal water treatment plants in their mandated waste water recycling obligations. According to Picazio, his technology was previously unavailable to such municipal water treatment plants.1

[1413]*1413Picazio lacked the financial resources to construct the necessary machinery and to fund the operational costs of his business. Therefore, he entered into an agreement with Morton Ginsberg whereby Ginsberg would invest capital into the business in exchange for an undisclosed ownership percentage in the business. (Compl. at ¶ 10). As a part of this new business venture, Picazio disclosed the specifics of his invention and his business plan to.Ginsberg, and Ginsberg agreed to pay all of the costs associated with the filing of an application with the United States Patents and Trademark Offices (“USPTO”) to obtain a Patent for Picazio’s invention. In furtherance of this end, Ginsberg contacted Silverman who undertook to create and file the Patent Application working directly with Picazio and his design engineer.2 Id. at ¶ 13-14. Picazio provided Silverman with all relevant technical specifications and drawings I directly, and specifically instructed Silverman to designate him, Picazio, as the inventor of the Patent Application’s technology. Id. at ¶ 16.

Completion and testing of the prototype followed, after which an undisclosed customer installed Picazio’s water separator machine in its wastewater treatment facility. At some point after this, Picazio discovered that Silverman had filed the Patent Application, but that Picazio was not listed as the inventor, designer, and/or co-inventor on the Application. Picazio filed the instant Complaint alleging claims for: (1). Professional Malpractice and (2) Breach of Fiduciary Duty.

Silverman filed the instant Motion asserting that this case must be dismissed because: (1) pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), the Complaint fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted; (2) Picazio’s claims of inventorship are “fatuous,” or otherwise pointless as “the determination of inventorship is vested solely in the Director of the [USPTO]”; (3) Picazio has failed to join a necessary and indispensable party to the action, namely the owner of the Patent Application;3 and (4) this matter is not ripe for adjudication because no Patent has issued.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) challenges the legal sufficiency of a complaint. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). In assessing the legal sufficiency of a complaint’s allegations, this Court is bound to apply the pleading standard articulated in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) [hereinafter Twombly ]; Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) [hereinafter Iqbal ]. That is, the complaint “must ... contain sufficient factual matter, ac[1414]*1414cepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ ” Am. Dental Ass’n v. Cigna Corp., 605 F.3d 1283, 1289 (11th Cir.2010) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955). “Dismissal is therefore permitted when on the basis of a dispositive issue of law, no construction of the factual allegations will support the cause of action.” Glover v. Liggett Group, Inc., 459 F.3d 1304, 1308 (11th Cir.2006) (internal quotations omitted) (citing Marshall Cnty. Bd. of Educ. v. Marshall Cnty. Gas Dist., 992 F.2d 1171, 1174 (11th Cir.1993)).

When reviewing a motion to dismiss, a court must construe plaintiff’s complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and take the factual allegations stated therein as true. See Brooks v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Fla., Inc., 116 F.3d 1364, 1369 (11th Cir.1997); Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 93, 127 S.Ct. 2197, 167 L.Ed.2d 1081 (2007); Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 406, 122 S.Ct. 2179, 153 L.Ed.2d 413 (2002). However, pleadings that “are no more than conclusions, are not entitled to the assumption of truth. While legal conclusions can provide the framework of a complaint, they must be supported by factual allegations.” Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950; see also Sinaltrainal v. Coca-Cola Co., 578 F.3d 1252, 1260 (11th Cir.2009) (stating that an unwarranted deduction of fact is not considered true for the purpose of determining whether a claim is legally sufficient).

Generally, a plaintiff is not required to detail all the facts upon which he bases his claim. Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2). Rather, Rule 8(a)(2) requires a short and plain statement of the claim that fairly notifies the defendant of both the claim and the supporting grounds. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555-56, 127 S.Ct. 1955. However, “Rule 8(a)(2) still requires a ‘showing,’ rather than a blanket assertion, of entitlement to relief.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556 n. 3, 127 S.Ct. 1955. The plaintiffs “obligation to provide the ‘grounds’ of his ‘entitlement to relief requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Id. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (citation omitted).

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965 F. Supp. 2d 1411, 2013 WL 4714171, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126845, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/picazio-v-melvin-k-silverman-associates-pc-flsd-2013.