In 2003 a Williams-Sonoma employee named Mary Gattineri invented a brownie pan that used removable inserts to bake pre-cut brownies.
Mary called her invention “The Perfect Brownie Pan” and presented it to her district manager hoping that Williams-Sonoma might produce and sell the pan.
Unfortunately for Mary, Williams-Sonoma made no offers for the invention.
In 2009, however, Mary was stunned to see a product “virtually identical” to her brownie pan appear in an infomercial by Allstar Marketing Group. The product was even marketed as “The Perfect Brownie Pan.”
The invention was patented the following year (2010) by Focus Products Group.
Although Mary spoke with at least four lawyers about her situation, she took no legal action against Williams-Sonoma until 2021 when she sued the company for misappropriating trade secrets. By that time, the statute of limitations had long since expired.
Accordingly, Williams-Sonoma filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit which the trial judge allowed.
Mary’s appeal soon followed.
The Appeals Court upheld the lawsuit’s dismissal.
The applicable law states,
An action for misappropriation must be brought within 3 years after the misappropriation is discovered or by the exercise of reasonable diligence should have been discovered.
M.G.L. c. 93, § 42E
According to the Appeals Court, the 3-year limitation period began to run from the date that Mary saw the infomercial. And that was nearly 12 years prior to the date she filed her lawsuit.
Additionally, the justices held that the 2010 patent by Focus Products Group “served as notice to [the] world” of the product’s existence.
In one of the footnotes the Appeals Court added,
We further note that a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s position would have known her injury when she saw the infomercial in 2009. We decline to apply the plaintiff’s proposed standard of a “single mother with no business experience” in assessing knowledge, as the test for reasonableness is objective. To invoke discovery rule, plaintiff must prove both an actual lack of causal knowledge and the objective reasonableness of that lack of knowledge. (Citations and quotations omitted.)
To read the full opinion, click the document below.