Appeals court upholds dismissal of lawsuit against Bold Technologies

Feb. 24, 2014
Judges find no evidence to support Dice's claims that company copied its software

Late last month, a federal appeals court upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed against Bold Technologies by rival Dice Corporation that accused the company of copying Dice’s software. In an 18-page opinion, a three judge panel affirmed the dismissal of Dice’s case on all counts.

“The federal District Court and the federal Court of Appeals carefully reviewed Dice’s claims and agreed with us that Bold Technologies had done nothing wrong and that these allegations were totally groundless. This case never should have been filed and we are thrilled with this result,” R. Christopher Cataldo, an attorney with the Michigan law firm of Jaffe, Raitt, Heuer & Weiss, PC, who defended the case on behalf of Bold Technologies said in press release posted on company’s website.  

According to court documents, one of the complaints in the case stemmed from a decision made by a longtime Dice customer, Birmingham, Ala.-based ESC Central to switch to Bold’s software platform in April 2011. While transitioning the central station’s system over to the Bold platform, Dice claimed in the lawsuit that the company copied the source code of their software. Dice also claimed in the suit that a former employee who later joined Bold accessed the company’s servers containing information on proprietary signal processing intelligence software.  

However, U.S. District Court Judge Thomas L. Ludington found no evidence to support Dice’s claims and dismissed the case in 2012. Dice would later appeal that decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. 

“We are delighted with the outright dismissal of this case and we are happy to see the case come to a close,” said Rod Coles, CEO of Bold Technologies. “This case was dismissed multiple times in several courts; the entire lawsuit was a fabrication. We do not believe great companies are built on short-cuts in the product or attempts in the court room. We have not wavered in our principles and we continue to focus on providing best-in-class technology that empowers companies to easily handle industry challenges, streamline operations and strategically plan for the future.”

In response, Dice issued the following statement: “We are disappointed by the decision of the court of appeal affirming the trial courts dismissal of our case.  As you know intellectual property claims such as ours are very difficult to prove because much of the information is in the hands of the opposing party. Bold waged a very impressive defense in addition to making it difficult on us to collect the information they controlled. This made it hard on Dice to prove our position to the court.  We are reviewing actions by Bold in other jurisdictions for potential prosecution to protect our intellectual property going forward.  We continue to grow and do very well in the security space helping some of the largest security companies to be the most efficient operations in the industry.”