Zaccari v. Apprio, Inc.

390 F. Supp. 3d 103
Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit·Decided June 4, 2019·No. Civil Action No. 18-1560 (JDB)·Published·Cited by 12 cases

Opinion

Approximately one month later, Zaccari demonstrated CRR to other senior employees at DCMA, including IWMS Program Lead Antoine McNeil. Id. ¶ 17. McNeil subsequently contacted Apprio executives and "demanded" a copy of the application. Id. ¶ 18. In response, "Apprio's leadership directed Zaccari to give the source code for" CRR to McNeil, and to provide a copy of the application to the BPR 1 team. Id.

The BPR 1 team then "removed Zaccari's name as [the] author [of] CRR" and renamed the program "ConCISE." Id. ¶ 19. Next, McNeil worked with Discover Technologies LLC ("DT"), another government contractor, to create a "derivative" application using CRR's source code. Id. ¶ 20. DCMA later shared copies of CRR with various other DoD agencies and, in 2017, implemented a version of ConCISE that was similar to CRR. Id. ¶¶ 23, 33. DCMA employees predicted that ConCISE would save the agency millions of dollars. Id. ¶¶ 21, 26, 34.

Although Zaccari advised supervisors at Apprio that he owned CRR and repeatedly asked Apprio to "confront DCMA" about the use of CRR without his authorization or consent, his requests were ignored. Id. ¶¶ 24, 30. On April 23, 2018, Zaccari filed an application to register CRR with the U.S. Copyright Office, which was subsequently accepted. Id. ¶ 4.

II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

In June 2018, Zaccari filed this lawsuit.3 A few months later, Apprio filed its own suit against Zaccari arising out of the same facts. See Apprio, Inc. v. Zaccari, Civ. No. 18-2180 (filed Sept. 21, 2018). The Court consolidated the cases and stayed briefing and discovery on Apprio's claims pending further order of the Court. See Jan. 11, 2019 Order [ECF No. 15].

Zaccari brings four claims against Apprio. Count I alleges that Apprio breached the assignment of inventions Agreement the parties entered in 2015. Compl. ¶¶ 36-42. Count II alleges copyright infringement under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. § 101 et. seq. Id. ¶¶ 43-51. Count III alleges civil conspiracy. Id. ¶¶ 52-55. Count IV alleges misappropriation of trade secrets under the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 ("DTSA"), 18 U.S.C. § 1831 et seq. Id. ¶¶ 56-62. Zaccari seeks, among other things, $63,000,000 in actual damages and injunctive relief ordering Apprio not to infringe his rights in CRR. Id. at 14-15.

Apprio has moved to dismiss the complaint and Zaccari has opposed. See Apprio, Inc.'s Mot. to Dismiss the Compl. Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) & 12(b)(6) ("Def.'s Mot.") [ECF No. 11]; Pl.'s Mem. in Opp'n to Def.'s Mot. ("Pl.'s Opp'n") [ECF No. 12]. The motion is fully briefed and ripe for resolution.

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Zaccari v. Apprio, Inc., 390 F. Supp. 3d 103 (D.C. Cir. 2019).

390 F. Supp. 3d 103 (Zaccari v. Apprio, Inc.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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