June 3, 2016
CapitalPress.com
3
Livestock company wins trade secret injunction
Lawsuit accuses
ex-employee of
launching rival
Chinese company
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
An Oregon livestock nu-
trition company has won an
injunction against a former
employee accused of stealing
trade secrets to start his own
company in China.
Omnigen Research of Cor-
vallis, Ore., has filed a lawsuit
alleging that scientist Yongq-
iang Wang is trying to sell
knock-offs of its feed additives
in violation of confidentiality
agreements.
U.S. District Judge Mi-
chael McShane has ordered
Wang and his wife, as well as
the companies under their con-
trol, to stop using any of Om-
nigen’s copyrighted materials
and trade secrets.
The preliminary injunction
also instructs them to return
all materials pertaining to
Omnigen’s technology, and
turn over their electronic me-
dia, among other provisions.
Omnigen was originally
founded in 2002 by Oregon
State University professor
Neil Forsberg and his grad-
uate student, Steve Punten-
ney, who developed patent-
ed feed additives aimed at
counteracting hemmorhagic
bowel syndrome in dairy
cows.
A decade later, the firm
was bought for nearly $23
million by the Phibro Animal
Health Corp., a publicly traded
company based in New York.
Roughly 20 percent of the
U.S. dairy cow herd is treated
with Omnigen products, which
are also catching on in several
foreign countries and have re-
ceived regulatory approval to
be sold in China, according to
Phibro financial documents.
According to Omnigen’s
lawsuit, cofounder Forsberg
took Wang “under his wing”
when Wang was an OSU grad-
uate student and asked him to
join the company.
“However, at some point,
Wang apparently decided he
owed no loyalty to OmniGen
Research,” the complaint said.
“So, while continuing to work
at OmniGen Research, he
shirked his contractual and fi-
duciary obligations to secretly
form two businesses, Bioshen
and Mirigen, to compete with
OmniGen Research with the
help of his wife and associ-
ates.”
Before he quit in 2013,
Wang had access to its confi-
dential “research and exper-
imentation methods” as well
as improvements made to
Omnigen products, such as in-
gredient sources and ratios, the
complaint said.
Wang allegedly took out
a “sham” patent in China for
products with ingredients sim-
ilar to Omnigen’s, but which
listed his wife and associates
as the inventors, and has ob-
tained a Chinese production
license for a feed additive, the
complaint said.
Last year, the companies
formed by Wang held a sym-
posium on livestock health in
China at which he presented
Omnigen’s “illegally copied”
copyrighted slides, the com-
plaint said.
In response to the com-
plaint, Wang admits obtaining
a Chinese patent, launching
Bioshen and Mirigen and orga-
nizing a scientific conference
but denies that he relied on any
of Omnigen’s trade secrets or
confidential information.
Omnigen’s methods of test-
ing feed additives, as well as
its “processes for making ad-
ditives, sourcing ingredients,
mixing ingredients, ingredient
ratios and scientific knowl-
edge” do not qualify as trade
secrets, according to Wang’s
answer.
Wang also claims that he
was enticed to quit a faculty
position at OSU to work for
Omnigen with the promise of
receiving a share of the profits
if the company was sold.
Forsberg, the co-founder,
unjustly enriched himself by
breaching that promise when
Phibro bought Omnigen,
Wang alleges.
“As a foreseeable result of
Forsberg’s fraudulent conduct
Wang has incurred economic
damages consisting of a rea-
sonable share of the proceeds
that Forsberg received from
the sale of OmniGen and the li-
censing of its products,” Wang
said in a counter-complaint.
Wang has also requested
that the judge reconsider the
preliminary injunction, argu-
ing it’s “vague, draconian, and
outside the scope of a legiti-
mate provisional remedy.”
The defendants had an
insufficient opportunity to
respond to the injunction re-
quest and requiring Wang to
surrender his laptop and other
electronic devices “effective-
ly limits his ability to work,”
according to a court docu-
ment.
PVMI pursues relicensing, new business plan
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
BEND, Ore. — The
nonprofit organization that
markets potato varieties de-
veloped by the Idaho, Wash-
ington and Oregon public
breeding programs is coming
up for renewal and is solicit-
ing proposals from third par-
ties interested in overseeing
development of a new long-
term business plan.
The Potato Variety Man-
agement Institute, incorporat-
ed as a nonprofit organization
in 2005 to collect royalties
and market varieties for par-
ticipants in the Northwest
Potato Variety Development
Program, plans to develop a
10-year business and succes-
sion plan highlighting oppor-
tunities for improvement.
PVMI, which has set a
June 15 application deadline
and a March 15, 2017, dead-
line for the business plan’s
completion, emphasized in its
request for proposals that the
organization has already ac-
complished more than found-
ers originally anticipated.
PVMI Executive Director
Jeanne Debons said the or-
ganization is also pursuing a
five-year renewal of its master
license agreement.
PVMI partners include
the Washington state, Oregon
and Idaho potato commis-
sions, the University of Idaho,
Washington State University
and Oregon State University
and USDA.
“Taking a fresh look at
this agreement with new eyes
on it is always a positive ap-
proach,” said Michael Parella,
dean of UI’s College of Agri-
cultural and Life Sciences.
Parella said the college is
interviewing candidates for
a new vice president for re-
search, who will oversee the
PVMI agreement.
Courtesy of Linhai Zhang
From left, Chuck Brown, Jeanne Debons, Darrin Culp and Zach Holden select single-hill potatoes for the Tri-State Potato Research and
Breeding Program in 2011. The Potato Variety Management Institute, which markets the varieties, is issuing a request for proposals for a
third party to help draft a vision for the organization’s future.
“I intend to be active in
PVMI going forward,” Parel-
la added.
Debons said PVMI’s
nine-member board formed a
subcommittee to oversee the
renewal, and the three pota-
to commissions suggested
third-party guidance in de-
veloping a business plan, in-
volving input from all of the
partners.
“We’re trying to make this
a process that involves every-
one so people can contribute
to PVMI’s future direction,”
Debons said.
Debons said the business
plan will also provide doc-
umentation that more accu-
rately describes what PVMI
has become since an Oregon
consultant helped establish
the original business and mar-
keting plan.
“When PVMI started 10
years ago, nobody knew what
it was going to be because
there was nothing like it,”
Debons said.
Debons said the Oregon
consultant charged $50,000.
PVMI’s annual budget is
$230,000 and covers legal
fees, licensing, staff time,
travel and marketing efforts.
PVMI contributed more
than $2 million to the univer-
sities and kept $500,000 in
reserves through the end of
2015. During that time, the
organization collected more
than $500,000 from licensing
its varieties and about $3.4
million in royalty revenue.
Debons said PVMI has
partnerships with more than a
dozen foreign countries where
its varieties are being evaluat-
ed or grown.
She believes promising
new PVMI varieties including
Blazer Russet, Payette Russet
and Clearwater Russet could
lead the organization to more
than double its royalties with-
in the next five years.
Oregon Potato Commis-
sion Executive Director Bill
Brewer believes the third-par-
ty analysis will enhance trans-
parency about PVMI and
demonstrate to the industry
that the organization has ef-
fectively tracked its varieties
and collected royalties.
“When we started, we
didn’t think (PVMI) would
be profitable and actually re-
turning money for quite a few
years,” Brewer said.
Courtesy of ODFW
The Imnaha wolf pack’s alpha
male is shown after being refit-
ted with a working GPS collar
in 2011 in this file photo.
1 probable,
1confirmed
wolf kill in
Northeast
Oregon
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Wolves killed a lamb and
probably killed a calf in sep-
arate attacks in late May, the
Oregon Department of Fish
& Wildlife reported.
On the evening of May 20,
a herder working on private
land along the South Fork of
the Walla Walla River near
the Umatilla-Wallowa coun-
ty line noticed a disturbance
in the flock and saw four
wolves, one with a dead lamb
in its mouth.
ODFW personnel in-
vestigated the next day
and confirmed the kill was
done by wolves. Investiga-
tors found a “drag trail” of
bone, blood and wool, but
the rest of the lamb appar-
ently had been consumed
overnight.
Tracking collar data
showed that OR-40, of the
Walla Walla Pack, was near
the sheep bedding ground at
3 a.m. on May 21.
On May 23, a landowner
checking cattle on private
land in the Mud Creek area
of Wallowa County found the
remains of a dead calf. There
was no clear evidence the
150-pound calf had been at-
tacked by wolves, but marks
on the rib, back and leg bones
found scattered about the site
indicated a predator with
large teeth was responsible,
according to an ODFW re-
port.
In addition, the calf was
consumed in one night, also
a hallmark of a wolf attack.
Nonetheless, ODFW desig-
nated the incident a “proba-
ble” wolf attack rather than
“confirmed.”
Tracking collar GPS co-
ordinates showed two mem-
bers of the Shamrock Pack,
OR-23 and OR-41, were in
the area at different times on
May 22 and May 23.
ROP-23-4-2/#24
OSHA fines East Idaho potato processor $273,000
BOISE — The federal Oc-
cupational Safety and Health
Administration has fined an
Eastern Idaho frozen potato pro-
cessor $273,000 for safety vio-
lations committed in December,
according to an agency press
release issued May 31.
According to OSHA, Dick-
inson Frozen Foods Inc. in Sug-
ar City failed to protect its em-
ployees and was not prepared to
respond to a “potentially lethal”
release of 1,300 pounds of anhy-
drous ammonia on Dec. 1.
Nobody was injured by the
release, but employees at the fa-
cility have been hospitalized as
a result of past releases, OSHA
said.
OSHA investigators issued
19 serious and two willful cita-
tions against Dickinson, after an
investigation following the release
uncovered “dozens of hazards re-
lated to emergency response, re-
spiratory protection and process
safety management of hazardous
materials violations.”
Anhydrous ammonia is a
colorless gas that can damage
the eyes and respiratory sys-
tem and can be explosive when
mixed with certain chemicals.
Violations pertained to em-
ployees being exposed to liquid
ammonia without protective
clothing, entering a potentially
life-threatening situation with-
out self-contained breathing
equipment, not being medically
evaluated or fit tested to wear
respirators, not receiving proper
training in the facility’s emer-
gency response plan and re-
sponding to an emergency with-
out proper emergency response
training, according to OSHA.
The facility employs 220
workers and produces processed
potato products for use in con-
sumer items such as frozen
dinners. Requests for comment
were referred to Dickinson’s
corporate headquarters.
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