Opinion ID: 166601
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Entrance of MACTEC and subsequent re-negotiations

Text: 11 In 1997, EG & G agreed to sell certain of its assets to Plaintiff-Appellant MACTEC, Inc. (MACTEC) including its stock in NoVOCs (and, by implication, NoVOCs' license to Stanford's patent over the NoVOCs technology). In a separate written instrument, MACTEC became the successor-in-interest to the stock purchase agreement between EG & G and Gorelick, expressly assuming all of EG & G's payment obligations to Stanford and Gorelick. 12 In 1998, MACTEC, through one of its LLC subsidiaries, began using a different method of in situ groundwater treatment in some of its wells, known as UBV technology. 1 Because the NoVOCs and UBV technologies overlapped, MACTEC was unsure as to whether the use of the UBV technology would trigger the $3000 per-well royalty obligation to Gorelick it had assumed in the stock purchase agreement. As a result, MACTEC approached Gorelick with the intention of re-negotiating the royalty payments. 13 The parties eventually agreed in writing to reduce Gorelick's royalty payment to $1500 for each remediation well that was installed by the LLC. For remediation wells not installed by the LLC, but rather by another entity under the MACTEC umbrella, Gorelick would continue to receive his original $3000 payment. The term remediation well is defined in the document as any hole that (i) has been dug, drilled, or otherwise installed, or (ii) which existed and has been converted in use, and that is employed or intended for the partial or complete removal treatment of subsurface contaminants. Nowhere in the written agreement did MACTEC condition Gorelick's payment on a given well's use of NoVOCs or UBV technology.