Autocam Medical sues White’s Bridge Tooling over trade secrets | Crain's Grand Rapids Business

Kentwood-based Autocam Medical Devices LLC claims a small contract manufacturer in Lowell violated trade secrets by using its proprietary design and data to build a machine for a direct competitor.

In a federal lawsuit filed June 27 in Grand Rapids, Autocam Medical and wholly owned subsidiary Southeastern Technology Inc. of Murfreesboro, Tenn. accuse White’s Bridge Tooling Inc. and company owner Peter Odland of intentionally violating non-disclosure agreements intended to protect proprietary data and intellectual property.

The company said it learned of the alleged violations after observing equipment during a site visit to the Lowell plant and from a paperwork blunder that tipped Autocam Medical executives that White’s Bridge Tooling was working with its competitor.

The case stems from Autocam Medical Devices contracting with White’s Bridge Tooling in 2021 to build three machines that Autocam created to automatically straighten surgical drill bit blanks “to within precise specifications,” according to court documents. Using “new and proprietary modifications and upgraded designs,” White’s Bridge Tooling built and delivered the three machines in 2022.

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When Autocam Medical wanted to recontract with White’s Bridge Tooling, company representatives visiting the Lowell manufacturing facility “noticed something curious: a machine that looked nearly identical to (Autocam Medical’s) proprietary straightening machines — machines expressly incorporating trade secret and proprietary information, data, and designs,” according to court filings. “Yet, (Autocam Medical) had not ordered any additional automatic straightening machines from White’s Bridge.”

Autocam Medical received White’s Bridge Tooling’s quote for the new work on June 2. When reviewing the document on June 18, executives noticed a line in the document referred to the client as “Orchid Orthopedic Solutions,” not Autocam Medical, according to the lawsuit filed June 27 in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan.

Mason-based medical device maker Orchid is Autocam Medical’s largest competitor.

When Autocam confronted White’s Bridge about the error in the quote, the company’s president, Peter Odland, “confessed that White’s Bridge had constructed a copy of (Autocam’s) proprietary automatic straightening machines, including engineering controls for use to achieve a specific drill, for competitor Orchid,” according to court documents.

“White’s Bridge saw this as an opportunity to profit from (Autocam’s) confidential, proprietary, trade secret designs by selling them to plaintiffs’ biggest competitor,” attorneys for Autocam and allege in the court filings.

Odland could not immediately be reached for comment on the case.

The lawsuit, which also names Odland as a defendant, asks the court to issue a series of restraining orders that prevent White’s Bridge Tooling from:

The lawsuit also seeks unspecified damages and creation of a trust “over all compensation, profits, monies, accruals, increments, and other benefits (White’s Bridge) obtained through their wrongful conduct,” plus the return of trade secrets and confidential and proprietary information and data.

Attorneys for Autocam Medical asked the court for “urgent intervention” to stop White’s Bridge Tooling “from profiting from its illicit selling of … trade secrets” to a competitor and “most urgently to stop defendant White’s Bridge from providing or delivering to that competitor (or allowing the competitor to inspect) a machine that would allow the competitor to use the machine to make competing goods and further reverse engineer the machine to unfairly compete with (Autocam).”

Attorneys from the Grand Rapids office of Honigman LLP are representing Autocam Medical in the case, which was assigned to U.S. District Court Chief Judge Hala Jarbou. Court records did not yet indicate legal counsel for White’s Bridge Tooling.

Representatives for Autocam Medical declined to comment on the case.

Autocam Medical had a “longstanding relationship” with Odland and White’s Bridge, according to the lawsuit. The company provided White’s Bridge Tooling with nearly $700,000 in business from 2018 to 2024.

The “highly technical and complex” machines at the center of the lawsuit “were revolutionary from a price-advantage perspective because they automated a task that once required intensive human labor,” according to the complaint. “Through their proprietary designs and controls, plaintiffs have streamlined the manufacturing process, significantly lowered costs, and in turn given themselves a distinct competitive advantage in the market.”

Since developing the automatic straightening machines, Autocam Medical “has made further advancements and modifications to the machines’ design and controls that improved their utility and efficiency.”

In court filings, Autocam Medical said that when executives asked how White’s Bridge “came to build (Autocam’s) proprietary, confidential machine for a key competitor,” Odland claimed that Orchid approached his company. Orchid had learned that White’s Bridge “had constructed straightening machine for a competitor and wanted White’s Bridge to provide such a machine to Orchid,” according to the court filings.

In a June 21 telephone conversation with Odland and another representative to discuss how to resolve the dispute, executives from White’s Bridge Tooling suggested that Autocam Medical could acquire the contract manufacturing operation. The representatives also “intimated that because of their work for Orchid, (Autocam Medical) might learn about Orchid’s own proprietary information” if it were to acquire White’s Bridge.

Autocam Medical representatives “immediately told defendants to stop any discussion of Orchid’s propriety information,” according to court filings.

When Autocam Medical asked for “guarantees that the status quo would (be) preserved while the parties tried to resolve the dispute, (White’s Bridge representatives) suggested that the machine would not be ready to ship to Orchid for ‘several weeks,’ but refused to commit to not shipping or delivering the machine, or allowing Orchid to inspect the machine in the interim.”

Autocam filed the federal lawsuit six days later.

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