Intellectual Property Law

Civil remedy portion of Indiana's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute is not preempted by Indiana Uniform Trade Secrets Act;

Posted on May 09, 2008
884 N.E.2d 294 (In 2008) Plaintiff company providing quality control services to manufacturers and suppliers brought action against competitor, its sister company, owners of sister company, and two former employees of plaintiff, asserting claims for misappropriation of trade secrets under the Indiana Uniform Trade Secrets Act (IUTSA) and Indiana's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute...

Iowa - Possibility of reverse engineering was not dispositive of issue.

Posted on May 09, 2008
From our friends at Jurisnotes.com Cemen Tech, Inc. v. Three D Industries, LLC (Iowa 5/2/08) CTI sued Three, Longnecker, Jones, Luhrs, Yelton, Dorman, and others for misappropriation of trade secrets and related claims. The trial court granted Three's motion for summary judgment on virtually all of CTI's claims and the Supreme Court of Iowa affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded...

WD Pa - Stored Communications Act preemption clause did not apply.

Posted on May 08, 2008
From our friends at Jurisnotes.com Ideal Aerosmith, Inc. v. Acutronic USA (WD Pa 4/23/08) Ideal sued Acutronic and others (collectively "Acutronic") for misappropriation of trade secrets and related claims. The court denied Acutronic's motion for judgment on the pleadings...

The final Intellectual Property show in the 13 part Summit TV series hosts Jeremy Sampson from Interbrand and Alan Lewis from Adams & Adams Attorneys on how to measure the value of intellectual property

Posted on May 08, 2008
- Click here to listen to the interview It?s on a comparative benchmarking basis. That is somewhat difficult to do with patents and trade secrets and the like - because people don?t expose or disclose what they?ve paid or bought if there?s an assignment, or the licence fee if there?s a licence...

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Authorities arrested David A. Gamache, 45, of Bradenton, this week. They say he stole computer files from his employers that contained addresses and passwords, among other information.

Posted on May 08, 2008
Michael A. Scarcella BRADENTON ? The owner of a computer company is accused of stealing trade secrets from a business he was working for, according to Manatee County sheriff?s reports. Authorities arrested David A. Gamache, 45, of Bradenton, this week...

Tesla Motors sues competitor alleging theft of trade secrets

Posted on May 08, 2008
TERENCE CHEA SAN FRANCISCO?Tesla Motors Inc., a Silicon Valley company that makes electric cars, has filed suit against a competing company and its founders alleging they stole trade secrets to design a competing vehicle. San Carlos-based Tesla recently started shipping its first vehicle, a two-door electric sports car called the Tesla Roadster, which has generated excitement among environmentalists and auto enthusiasts...

One cause of the predicament is that companies fear interns might leak data or trade secrets.

Posted on May 05, 2008
Aparna Kalra New Delhi: After a few on-campus visits to recruit summer interns at the Indian Institute of Management, or IIM, in Ahmedabad, financial services company Edelweiss Capital Ltd created such a buzz that the students invited the company for final job placements last year...

Managing expenses: trade secrets

Posted on May 05, 2008
Recent public sector scandals have brought expense management into the spotlight. So what's the best way to ensure your organisation doesn't get ripped off? More than 50 MPs have reportedly laid-off members of staff following the expenses scandal surrounding Tory MP, Derek Conway, who used his expenses to employ two of his sons as researchers earlier this year...

Recruiting and retaining quality personnel in SMEs

Posted on May 05, 2008
OLUYINKA ALAWODE Problems: only about five million people of the total adult population in Nigeria are skilled. The competition for the skilled manpower is very keen. No matter how much money is put in to float a project, it can be copied. So a business must be dynamic...

Hedge funds are dragging defectors into ugly courtroom battles over trade secrets.

Posted on May 05, 2008
Megan Barnett Eric Falkenstein isn't your typical 42-year-old hedge fund manager. Instead of trading stocks all day or courting new investors, he spends his time updating his blog, researching equity strategies, and talking to his lawyer. He's a hedge fund portfolio manager who is legally restrained from managing hedge fund portfolios...

977 So.2d 109 (2008) Court

Posted on May 03, 2008
977 So.2d 109 (2008) Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Fifth Circuit. INPUT/OUTPUT, INC. and I/O Marine Systems, Inc. v. WILSON GREATBATCH, INC. & Wilson Greatbatch, Ltd. d/b/a Electrochem Lithium Batteries. No. 07-CA-570. Jan. 22, 2008. Background: Marine seismic exploration products company brought action against battery manufacturer alleging various causes of action for breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, violations of Louisiana Unfair Trade Practices Act and Uniform Trade Secrets Act, unjust enrichment and conversion in connection with battery manufacturer's development of low priced battery for marine exploration product...

ACOUSTIC INNOVATIONS, INC. v. SCHAFER

Posted on May 03, 2008
976 So.2d 1139 (Fl. 2008) District Court of Appeal of Florida, Fourth District. ACOUSTIC INNOVATIONS, INC., a Florida corporation, Jay Miller, individually, and Joanne Miller, individually, Appellants, v. Carey SCHAFER, Appellee. No. 4D07-1603. Feb...

ICM REGISTRY, LLC, Plaintiff v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Posted on May 03, 2008
United States District Court, District of Columbia. ICM REGISTRY, LLC, Plaintiff, v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, et al., Defendants. Civil Action No. 06-0949 (JR). March 12, 2008. 538 F.Supp.2d 130 (D.D.C.,2008) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit was brought in an effort to ascertain government's involvement with the rejection of plaintiff's application for a new ...

People Aspects of Entrepreneurs: Personal Service Contacts with Key Personnel Including Non-Compete Clauses...

Posted on May 03, 2008
33 Can.-U.S. L.J. 159 Canada-United States Law Journal 2007 Proceedings of the Canada-United States Law Institute Conference on Comparative Legal Aspects of Entrepreneurship in Canada and the United States Cleveland, Ohio April 13-14, 2007 People Aspects of Entrepreneurs: Personal Service Contacts with Key Personnel Including Non-Compete Clauses, Methods of Reimbursement for Company Success, Incentives (Profit-Sharing or Other), and Effect of Immigration Restrictions on Entrance of Possible Entrepreneurs into Canada and the U...

Creating an effective IP and trade secret protection program

Posted on April 30, 2008
By ANDREA KIMBALL, Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps LLP Employee mobility is the greatest threat to a company's intellectual property. Gone are the days when an employee hires in and retires with a gold watch after 30 years of service. In this age of employee turnover, it's not surprising that nearly all theft of corporate information is committed by someone within the company.

There are very distinct limitations to the FDA's ability to share information which is identified as confidential or trade secret

Posted on April 30, 2008
HELEN BRANSWELL The Canadian Press U.S. and Canadian regulatory rules allowed companies to conduct "secret science" that jeopardized the lives and health of hundreds of people who took part in clinical trials for a human blood substitute, even though earlier tests had shown the existing products were dangerous, researchers reported yesterday...

Hard Evidence of Voting Machine Addition Errors

Posted on April 30, 2008
SLASHDOT "Princeton Professor, Ed Felton, has posted a series of blog entries in which he shows the printed tapes he obtained from the NJ voting machines don't report the ballots correctly. In response to the first one, Sequoia admitted that the machines had a known software design error that did not correctly record which kind of ballots were cast (republican or democratic primary ballots) but insisted the vote totals were correct...

Trade secrets litigation in the US federal courts using the CFAA

Posted on April 30, 2008
Lovells LLP R Mark Halligan and Deanna R Swits The recent case of Modis v Bardelli9 illustrates the increasingly common practice of litigating trade secret disputes in the US federal courts in conjunction with claims under the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)10...

The FDA, Preemption, and the Supreme Court

Posted on April 30, 2008
NEJM Volume 358:1883-1885, May 1, 2008, Number 18 Leonard H. Glantz, J.D., and George J. Annas, J.D., M.P.H. Everyone would like to be immune from lawsuits. Legislatures sometimes provide immunity in order to advance important social policy goals. For example, by providing health care professionals with immunity under Good Samaritan statutes, legislatures hope to encourage voluntary medical assistance in emergencies...

Upcoming trade secrets books...

Posted on April 30, 2008
Trade Secrets and Confidential Information Security Risk and Misappropriation by Ryan Conion (Hardcover - Aug 28, 2008) Global Secrets: Global Trade Secret Protection (Globalization & Law) by C. D. Freedman (Hardcover - Jun 28, 2008) Intellectual Property Culture: Strategies to Foster Successful Patent and Trade Secret Practices in Everyday Business by Eric M Dobrusin and Ronald A Krasnow (Paperback - Jun 26, 2008)

R. Mark Halligan's Trade Secret Case Law Database Updated

Posted on April 30, 2008
R. Mark Halligan's Trade Secret Case Law Database which is hosted by the askSam Web Publisher has been recently updated with 2007 and 2008 cases. The database is approaching one thousand cases. R Mark Halligan, Esq. is now a partner in the Chicago office of LOVELLS, an international law firm with 1700 lawyers in 26 offices around the world...

Why Do We Have Trade Secrets?

Posted on April 24, 2008

LAWYER BARRED FROM PRACTICE PENDING PROBE OF MISCONDUCT IN TRADE SECRETS LAWSUIT

Posted on April 24, 2008
4/17/2008 N.Y.L.J. 25, (col. 5) In the Matter of Kristan Peters U.S. - SDNY Judge Rakoff RESPONDENT, a former partner at law firm Dorsey & Whitney, was sanctioned for misconduct arising from her actions as counsel to Wolters Kluwer Financial Services Inc...

Trade Secret Jury Verdict : Redwood Health Services v. Clifford Der, dba Benefit Brokerage Services

Posted on April 24, 2008
Verdict-Defendant : The jury found in favor of the plaintiff on the counts of breach of fiduciary duty and interference of contract, and awarded it $59,780. The jury found for Der on the counts of breach of contract and common counts, and awarded him $135,291...

Marvell May Have Lost Battle to Suppress Voice Mail in Trade Secrets Case

Posted on April 24, 2008
The Recorder Marvell Semiconductor appears to have lost a long battle to suppress a voice mail at the center of a major trade secrets case brought by rival Jasmine Networks. On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court, in which the dispute had been pending for nearly four years, dropped its review of the matter and sent it back to the court that had ruled against Marvell in 2004...

What is Intellectual Property?: Trade Secret Law

Posted on April 20, 2008
By Judith A Silver of Coollawyer.com Intellectual Property is the group of legal rights in things that people create or invent. Intellectual property rights include patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret rights. In Europe and some other countries, "moral rights", which are rights of the artist not to have her work greatly altered, are also included...

Chef?s Lawsuit Against a Former Assistant Is Settled Out of Court

Posted on April 19, 2008
PETE WELLS The owner and chef of a Greenwich Village seafood restaurant has settled the lawsuit she brought against her former sous-chef after he opened a restaurant that she said was a ?total plagiarism? of her own. The chef, Rebecca Charles of Pearl Oyster Bar, had accused her former assistant, Edward McFarland, of copying ?each and every element? of her restaurant, including the white marble bar, the color scheme and the Caesar salad recipe when he and his partners opened Ed?s Lobster Bar in SoHo...

Web 2.0 Can Be a Pandora's Box of Liability

Posted on April 19, 2008
By David W. Garland and Kristina R. Haymes Internet Law & Strategy n recent years, millions of employees have joined the world of Web 2.0, which includes social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, blogs, wikis, podcasts, video sharing sites and RSS feeds...

Oxnard company is beefing up vehicles for use in war zone

Posted on April 18, 2008
Scott Hadly A former off-road racer shows how he prepares military vehicles for the war zone. Danny Wreesman strips down a 20-ton Navy tractor truck to be reinforced with a high-threat armor kit at Southern California Gold Products. It is the prototype for 11 vehicles the Oxnard company has been contracted to beef up...

Intellectual Property - Trade Secrets Center

Posted on April 18, 2008
Free Advice's trade secrets law legal information helps individuals and small businesses to understand their legal rights. To use Free Advice effectively, we recommend you read the Q&A's, post on the legal advice Bulletin Boards, and/or visit the state resource center! Click if you need assistance in locating an attorney, or finding trade secrets law legal forms...

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