BATON ROUGE (LN) — Chief U.S. District Judge Shelly D. Dick on Monday stayed her March 30 judgment ordering Amiblu Technology AS to give U.S. Composite Pipe South, LLC full and indefinite access to the Flowtite Process — the proprietary know-how behind a type of plastic piping known as FRP — while Amiblu pursues a Fifth Circuit appeal arguing its perpetual exclusive license to USCPS is terminable at will under Texas law.
The underlying dispute centers on a Know-How and Intellectual Property License Agreement under which Amiblu granted USCPS an exclusive license of unlimited duration to manufacture, use, and sell FRP pipe within the United States and Canada. After a two-day bench trial last July, Dick ruled in favor of USCPS on its specific-performance counterclaim, ordering Amiblu within thirty days to provide USCPS with full access to the Flowtite Know-How, including the fittings interface and know-how relating to FRP larger than 2,400 millimeters.
Amiblu moved to stay that judgment, arguing it would suffer irreparable harm if forced to disclose proprietary information that could not be clawed back if the Fifth Circuit later reversed. USCPS fired back that there was no basis to fear it would misuse the know-how, noting that Amiblu had been voluntarily supplying the information since 2022 — including throughout the four years of active litigation.
Dick acknowledged the tension but sided with Amiblu on the irreparable-injury question. The stay, she found, would not actually cut off USCPS's existing access to the bulk of the Flowtite system; it would only freeze disclosure of the narrow slice of know-how — the fittings interface and large-diameter pipe specifications — that USCPS does not yet possess. In USCPS's own characterization in its briefing, the judgment compels Amiblu to provide access to those limited remaining pieces of Know-How to which Amiblu wrongfully denied USCPS access.
On the merits prong, Dick stopped short of predicting Amiblu would win on appeal. She had already ruled against Amiblu's terminable-at-will theory at summary judgment, and the Fifth Circuit declined Amiblu's motion for leave to file an interlocutory appeal in June 2025. But Dick had also certified the legal question under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), a step that required her to find substantial ground for difference of opinion — enough, she concluded, to satisfy the lower threshold that applies when the balance of equities tilts heavily toward the movant.
Dick waived any bond requirement, reasoning that USCPS already holds most of the know-how, that any injury from the stay would be minimal, and that the court had no meaningful way to measure USCPS's potential damages — noting also that USCPS had pursued specific performance precisely because its losses were not quantifiable.
The public-interest factor, Dick found, was neutral: only the two parties would be substantially affected by the stay.
Amiblu has been voluntarily providing USCPS access to the Flowtite portal since 2022, and Dick's order requires that access to continue unchanged during the appeal — leaving USCPS without only the fittings interface and the large-diameter pipe specifications until the Fifth Circuit weighs in.