Trzaska maintains that he was pressured by his superiors at L’Oreal to reach a quota of 40 filed patent applications in 2014. However, he alleges that many of the applications were purely cosmetic and of low or poor quality. Trzaska says he told his employer that he would not file applications that the attorneys believed were not patentable.

Rules of conduct

Trzaska claims that his firing violates New Jersey’s Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA). He is also citing the Rules of Professional Conduct of the US Patent and Trademark Office. CEPA prevents employers from taking retaliatory action where the employee believes an activity contravenes a law or regulation, while the rules of conduct exist to prevent frivolous proceedings.