JoJo Cups are a sippy cup for toddlers at restaurants. (LinkedIn)
A dozen years ago, local inventor Amanda Sima saw a messy problem in need of a solution.
“I was tired of her tipping up her restaurant cups to drink, like she did with her sippy cups at home, or knocking them over and spilling the entire contents,” Sima recalls of her daughter, then 2. “And bringing a reusable cup from home was not a solution. Kids love restaurant cups!”
The answer was JoJo Cups, spill-resistant plastic lids that Sima created and patented.
In 2018, Sima reached out to The Waddington Group, a Kentucky-based packaging company, about mass-producing JoJo Cups. Their talks continued into early 2019, Sima recalls.
What happened next is in dispute. Sima claims that Waddington’s parent company, Novolex, stole her design, created identical lids in March 2019, and started selling them that summer, causing investors in JoJo Cups to withdraw their financing for the manufacture of her creation. Novolex claims its lids predate Sima’s lids and are not identical to JoJo Cups.
Sima hired the national law firm Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff and its attorney Justin Barker, who wrote a lengthy demand letter in early 2023 accusing Novolex of stealing Sima’s design and noting that the market for kids’ cups is $1 billion. Novolex hired the national firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough to defend itself against Sima’s allegations.
Unbeknownst to his client, Barker was in talks to join Nelson Mullins while he represented Sima. Barker soon softened his stance toward Novolex and urged Sima to drop the matter after supposedly seeing a document showing that Novolex’s design predated Sima’s, she says.
“He then went quiet on me (and) quit Benesch two weeks later,” Sima recalls. “I found out that he left for Nelson Mullins in the news, the day Benesch terminated me as a client.”
Sima, who still maintains that she invented JoJo Cups before Novolex, is suing that company and Nelson Mullins. After initially dismissing her lawsuit in August, Denver District Judge Jill Dorancy backtracked Oct. 10 and decided that Sima provided enough evidence to sue the two defendants for aiding and abetting a breach of fiduciary duty.
Amanda Sima’s three daughters holding JoJo Cups when they were younger. (Photo provided)
“Plaintiff’s allegations taken as true … barely cross that plausibility threshold,” Dorancy wrote.
“Whether the proof ultimately bears this out is for another day,” the judge explained to both sides. “For now, the court finds that the plaintiff has pleaded enough to proceed.”
Novolex is now asking Dorancy to reconsider her reconsideration and throw out Sima’s lawsuit once again. Nelson Mullins, however, is content to let her lawsuit move forward.
“Nelson Mullins believes Ms. Sima’s claims are meritless,” that law firm said in a statement, “and looks forward to its day in court to address her unfounded contentions.”
Sima is represented by Paul Gordon of Gordon Mediation in Denver. Novolex and Nelson Mullins are represented by Mark Clouatre and Adrienne Toon at Nelson Mullins.
A trial date has not been scheduled. Sima, who lives in Castle Pines, has not said how much money she will ask jurors to award her, explaining that it’s hard to put a number on.
“Entrepreneurs put everything they have into their creations, oftentimes at the expense of their mental health and families,” the inventor said. “These companies are multimillion- and multibillion-dollar entities who operate on different, unfair playing fields, and I want action for every minority entrepreneur out there like me in preventing this conduct.”
JoJo Cups are a sippy cup for toddlers at restaurants. (LinkedIn)
A dozen years ago, local inventor Amanda Sima saw a messy problem in need of a solution.
“I was tired of her tipping up her restaurant cups to drink, like she did with her sippy cups at home, or knocking them over and spilling the entire contents,” Sima recalls of her daughter, then 2. “And bringing a reusable cup from home was not a solution. Kids love restaurant cups!”
The answer was JoJo Cups, spill-resistant plastic lids that Sima created and patented.
In 2018, Sima reached out to The Waddington Group, a Kentucky-based packaging company, about mass-producing JoJo Cups. Their talks continued into early 2019, Sima recalls.
What happened next is in dispute. Sima claims that Waddington’s parent company, Novolex, stole her design, created identical lids in March 2019, and started selling them that summer, causing investors in JoJo Cups to withdraw their financing for the manufacture of her creation. Novolex claims its lids predate Sima’s lids and are not identical to JoJo Cups.
Sima hired the national law firm Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff and its attorney Justin Barker, who wrote a lengthy demand letter in early 2023 accusing Novolex of stealing Sima’s design and noting that the market for kids’ cups is $1 billion. Novolex hired the national firm Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough to defend itself against Sima’s allegations.
Unbeknownst to his client, Barker was in talks to join Nelson Mullins while he represented Sima. Barker soon softened his stance toward Novolex and urged Sima to drop the matter after supposedly seeing a document showing that Novolex’s design predated Sima’s, she says.
“He then went quiet on me (and) quit Benesch two weeks later,” Sima recalls. “I found out that he left for Nelson Mullins in the news, the day Benesch terminated me as a client.”
Sima, who still maintains that she invented JoJo Cups before Novolex, is suing that company and Nelson Mullins. After initially dismissing her lawsuit in August, Denver District Judge Jill Dorancy backtracked Oct. 10 and decided that Sima provided enough evidence to sue the two defendants for aiding and abetting a breach of fiduciary duty.
Amanda Sima’s three daughters holding JoJo Cups when they were younger. (Photo provided)
“Plaintiff’s allegations taken as true … barely cross that plausibility threshold,” Dorancy wrote.
“Whether the proof ultimately bears this out is for another day,” the judge explained to both sides. “For now, the court finds that the plaintiff has pleaded enough to proceed.”
Novolex is now asking Dorancy to reconsider her reconsideration and throw out Sima’s lawsuit once again. Nelson Mullins, however, is content to let her lawsuit move forward.
“Nelson Mullins believes Ms. Sima’s claims are meritless,” that law firm said in a statement, “and looks forward to its day in court to address her unfounded contentions.”
Sima is represented by Paul Gordon of Gordon Mediation in Denver. Novolex and Nelson Mullins are represented by Mark Clouatre and Adrienne Toon at Nelson Mullins.
A trial date has not been scheduled. Sima, who lives in Castle Pines, has not said how much money she will ask jurors to award her, explaining that it’s hard to put a number on.
“Entrepreneurs put everything they have into their creations, oftentimes at the expense of their mental health and families,” the inventor said. “These companies are multimillion- and multibillion-dollar entities who operate on different, unfair playing fields, and I want action for every minority entrepreneur out there like me in preventing this conduct.”
