Ashbury Heights Capital v. Factset Research Systems CA1/1

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Ashbury Heights Capital, LLC is an investment management and research company. Its founders invented an investment analytics technique that enables financial institutions to assess the impact of micro- and macro-economic events on companies and industries. Plaintiff claims its systems enable users to more accurately predict how stock prices will move, largely based on economic information and extrapolations from companies’ network of customer-supplier relationships. Revere, which was later renamed Bede LLC, was in the business of data mining and sales of related analytical products used in the financial services industry. Engmann was the cochairman of Revere, as well as a member. He was also Revere’s majority owner and debt holder. In August 2013, FactSet acquired substantially all of Revere’s assets and rights under its agreements. Similar to Revere, FactSet sells technology-based products and services in the field of investment management and research. In August 2010, plaintiff and Revere executed a software licensing agreement (the 2010 Agreement) concerning plaintiff’s intellectual property. Pursuant to the 2010 Agreement, Revere was to pay plaintiff…