In September, Miley Cyrus and the co-writers - Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack – of "Flowers" were sued by Tempo Music Investments over similarities between Cyrus’ lead single and Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man”.

After two months, on Wednesday (21 November), as Billboard reports, Cyrus and her co-writers filed a dismissal response to the lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles. They deny any exploitation of Mars’ track while working on “Flowers” and allege a “fatal flaw” in the copyright claim: Mars and two other co-writers of “When I Was Your Man” are not parties to the lawsuit, requiring invalidation of the lawsuit.

Cyrus’ attorneys wrote:

“Plaintiff unambiguously [says] that it obtained its claimed rights in the ‘When I Was Your Man’ copyright from only one of that musical composition’s four co-authors. That is a fatal and incurable defect in plaintiff’s claim.”

The investment company said it owns a portion of the 2013 hit-single, purchased from Philip Lawrence, one of the song's co-authors along with Mars, Ari Levin, and Andrew Wyatt. Cyrus’ team argue that only gives “non-exclusive rights” and in no way grants them “standing” to sue.

“Plaintiff brings this copyright infringement action alone — without any of that musical composition’s co-authors or other owners,” writes Cyrus' representative Peter Anderson of the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine. “Without the consent of the other owners, a grant of rights from just one co-owner does not confer standing.”

On the original lawsuit, Tempo Music Investment stated the following:

“Any fan of Bruno Mars’ When I Was Your Man knows that Miley Cyrus’s Flowers did not achieve all of that success on its own. Flowers duplicates numerous melodic, harmonic, and lyrical elements of When I Was Your Man, including the melodic pitch design and sequence of the verse, the connecting bass line, certain bars of the chorus, certain theatrical music elements, lyric elements, and specific chord progressions.”

"Flowers" was a huge success for Cyrus, winning her two GRAMMY awards: "Record Of The Year" and "Best Pop Solo Performance". The song sparked conversations among fans for its lyrical similarities to "When I Was Your Man", which many saw as a response or homage to Mars' song.