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Seventh Circuit: Injunction against use of plaintiff's copyrights and trade secrets too vague

By McKee, Voorhees & Sease, P.L.C.

In a decision last week, the Seventh Circuit vacated and remanded a district court's preliminary injunction in a copyright and trade secret case.  The court addressed the degree of specificity necessary for an injunction against misappropriating trade secrets and infringing copyrights, and vacated the injunction because it failed to detail the substance of the trade secret or confidential information the defendant was enjoined from using.

Interestingly, the court called attention to the fact that most of the information claimed as trade secret could actually be obtained by FOIA requests sent to state authorities.  The parties are modular home manufacturers, and are required to submit specific details of the homes they plan to sell in order to obtain state approval; those details were among the purported trade secrets.  The court said the injunction did not specify whether information obtained through the FOIA requests would violate the injunction.

More detail of Patriot Homes, Inc. v. Forest River Housing, Inc. after the jump.

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Full post as published by FileWrapper on January 14, 2008 (boomark / email).