"Why are you investigating Robinson Group and Golden Health powder?" Maryann demanded. "We haven't done anything wrong."
"That's for us to determine," Agent Johnson said, shrugging. "Let's get to work."
He waved his hand, and dozens of people immediately took action. They turned the factory upside down. The workers had been filled with such enthusiasm and high expectations, and now, those expectations had been doused with cold water. No one knew what to do.
Maryann frowned. She didn't fully understand what was going on, but she knew that she couldn't control it or interfere with the law. But she still had great confidence in the Robinson Group because she believed that all their processes, especially those concerning Golden Health powder, were above reproach.
It was the issue of the patent for Golden Health that was making her feel uneasy, and she was worried it wasn't a groundless fear.
Alex, who hadn't had much to say before, came forward and said, "Don't worry. It's just a minor inconvenience. Everything will return to normal soon."
She let herself be soothed by his calm demeanor and forced herself to relax.
Moments later, Fabian returned after making some phone calls.
"Something's not right," he said. "We just sent in the patent application, but someone had already submitted one for the same product. The Golden Health powder in their hands is no different from our formula, and they have already gone through all the proper procedures. I can't find a loophole, so now it looks like we're the copycats, and we're going to have a lot of trouble."
"How can that be?" Maryann asked, her mouth dropping open. "How could someone have patented Golden Health before us?"
She frowned, realizing that things were far more complicated than she had first thought.
"Are they kidding?" she muttered. "Copyright issues? That's ridiculous." She all but spat those last words.
They had worked overtime to produce the powder quickly and to prevent it from being copied, but now it appeared that everything they had done had been in vain.
Robinson Group was definitely the earliest holder of the Golden Health recipe. Of that, there was no doubt. So how could this have happened?
Her eyebrows drew down as she thought it over. "Something isn't right here," she said. "What if someone has stolen our recipe?" She shook her head. "But the production process was done in secret. Alex wrote the recipe out himself, and then I kept it secure. Very few R&D personnel were aware of it."
She tapped a finger on her cheek. "Naturally, Alex and I are excluded from suspicion, and it can't have been the other R&D personnel because I took precautions. To prevent our competitors from learning our secrets, the team each received only the part of the recipe they needed for their research and not the complete formula. All the researchers would have had to combine their knowledge for someone to have put it together. But that's impossible, because they were never together. They worked alone to avoid such sharing."
She threw up her hands. "So, how could this happen?" She looked sideways at Alex, and then she shook her head. She had absolute trust in Alex, and she knew he would never be so negligent. He was a careful person and would never make such a simple mistake. Besides, he owned half of the company, so he would only be harming himself if he sabotaged them. So, clearly, that wasn't the answer.
She also knew she hadn't done it, and she was sure that her plan had been seamless, and that she had thought of everything.
The idea that someone was producing the same product at the same time was ridiculous. Why had they waited until now?
She thought the timing was suspicious and showed that the move was probably premeditated. It was clearly designed to stop the Robinson Group and to suck them into a lawsuit, which could spell disaster.
The more Maryann thought about it, the more she saw the truth of the situation. The other party's patent application had come at too opportune a time, and that posed a problem.
They were cleverly aiming not only at the company, but at their specific production process, and that meant they knew the company was producing Golden Health powder.
Since they knew that the Robinson Group was working overtime to produce the powder, then they knew that the only way to slow them down was to steal the secret recipe and patent it first.
Fabian had similar thoughts. "If someone has divulged our secrets, then that means that they have eyes on us," he said. "If the formula really was the same as Alex's, then they must have been spying on us from the start. They couldn't have gotten the formula by legal means, and they don't want us to know who they are. Their aim is to make us suffer." He frowned. "Now, legally, we're in a terrible situation."
He thought it over, unable to see a way around it. Someone had beaten them to the patent, and there was no good argument that they could make against it.
"Who is clever and powerful enough to pull this off?" Lily asked. "And who is two-faced and wants to stab us in the back?"
"There must be a leak." Maryann's eyes were cold. "Lily, get hold of all our scientific research personnel. Tell them that they must not leave the laboratory without our authority."
She had no idea which department was the problem, but it had to be one of them. She knew that she had to act immediately if she was to contain them and get the relevant details before they had too much time to plan.
If evidence was found, then she knew that it might still be possible for the situation to be reversed. If not, the consequences would be unimaginable, and everything would be in vain.
Lily nodded and took out her phone to follow through on that request.
Maryann then asked, "Fabian, can you use your contacts to find out who sued us?"