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BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM, et. al. CASE

A market researcher brought action against Board of Trustees of California State University and acting director of San Diego State University Center for Hospitality and Tourism Research alleging copyright infringement, conversion, trade secret misappropriation, and unfair business practices. Affiliate brought motion to dismiss. The District Court, John A. Houston, J., held that: (1) Fourteenth Amendment's enforcement provision had not been validly invoked by purported abrogation of state's Eleventh Amendment immunity by Congress under Copyright Remedy Clarification Act (CRCA) to allow for federal claims of copyright infringement against states; (2) acting director was not entitled to Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity from suit seeking relief against him in his individual capacity for alleged violation of federal copyright law; (3) defendants were entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity to state law claims in federal court alleging conversion, misappropriation, and unfair business practices; (4) rights asserted in state law conversion claim, seeking damages for use of questionnaires and work papers created in connection with copyrighted economic impact studies, were same as those protected by Copyright Act, and thus were preempted; and (5) state law misappropriation of trade secret claim, alleging that confidential, proprietary trade secret information had been used in preparation of economic impact report, lacked extra element of disclosure of secret in contravention of specific duty to keep that information confidential, and, as such, was preempted by Copyright Act. Motion granted in part and denied in part.

Full post as published by The Trade Secrets Vault on July 27, 2008 (boomark / email).