Intellectual Property Law
The Trade Secrets Vault 
From the Franklin Pierce Law Center
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Stash of weapons in car found 'accidentally'
Posted on November 19, 2009BY KIM BOLAN VANCOUVER SUN An RCMP officer installing a secret tracking device in a Bacon brothers' vehicle said he was not looking for guns when he stumbled on a hidden compartment containing four loaded firearms and spare magazines. Cpl. Raymond Pang, a specialist who installs clandestine listening and tracking devices, testified in Surrey Provincial Court Monday that no other officers had suggested to him the Bacons' Suburban might contain a secret compartment...
Inventing a Better Patent System
Posted on November 17, 2009By ROBERT C. POZEN GARY LOCKE, the secretary of commerce, has urged Congress to overhaul the nation's patent law by the end of the year. Although a bill has been circulating since 2005, a fierce fight involving the high-tech and drug industries on a technical issue -- how to measure damages when a company violates a patent applying to one component of a larger product -- has kept it from reaching a vote...
Microsoft, ex-worker settle claims
Posted on November 17, 2009By Elinor Mills Microsoft sued a former employee earlier this year for allegedly stealing trade secrets that were later used in a patent lawsuit against Microsoft partners, in which Microsoft later intervened as a party-defendant. Microsoft's lawsuit alleged that Mullor took a job at Microsoft in 2005 while he was still chief executive at Ancora...
Zeropoint Risk Research And Processunity Annouce New Risk Analysis Tool
Posted on November 12, 2009By: Susan Shea Enterprise Threat Assessments Reduce Intellectual Property Theft, Identity Theft and Organizational Risk First detailed in the book, "THREAT! Managing Risk in a Hostile World," by ZeroPoint Risk Research president MacDonnell Ulsch, the Enterprise Threat Index for Predictive Risk Impact Scenario Modeling? (ETX PRISM?) was developed as a holistic risk management framework designed to reduce intellectual property theft, identity theft and organizational risk...
Cracking the code
Posted on November 12, 2009By Drew C. Wilson Havelock News A self-described computer geek, Richard Rogers believes he has cracked a code that has eluded scholars and researchers for more than 500 years. Mystery has always surrounded the Voynich Manuscript, located at Yale University...
Cost to build Plant Vogtle reactors falls
Posted on November 12, 2009By Walter C. Jones Morris News Service The official price tag for Georgia Power's share of two new reactors at Plant Vogtle is $1.5 billion lower than when the company requested permission to build them, according to testimony Tuesday in front of the Georgia Public Service Commission...
SMIC chief resigns after dispute settlement on trade secrets
Posted on November 11, 2009Source: Global Times Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC), a Shanghai-based contract chipmaker, announced Tuesday that Richard Chang resigned as the chief executive after the settlement of a long-running patent litigation. Chang will be replaced by David Wang, former executive vice-president of Applied Materials, a semiconductor equipment company based in the US, and former chief executive of Huahong, a smaller company that works with SMIC...
Ex-Home Depot manager faces theft charges in Ga.
Posted on November 06, 2009The Associated Press ATLANTA -- A former Home Depot Inc. manager is facing federal charges that he shared the Atlanta-based retail giant's trade secrets with a potential vendor. Prosecutors say in court filings that Martinez was a senior manager in the company's product engineering department responsible for assisting vendors who sought to sell products to the company...
RedTube Claims WEG Leaked Trade Secrets, Cybersquats
Posted on November 04, 2009By Rhett Pardon XBIZ.com Operators of RedTube.com filed a lawsuit against WEG, claiming the company scooped up a number of RedTube domain names with the intention to divert and acquire its traffic and profits. The suit against WEG, formally known as Web Entertainment Group Inc...
The high cost of defaulting
Posted on November 03, 2009Two individuals, Charles Joyce and James Voigt, sued PepsiCo and two Pepsi distributors in a Wisconsin state court, claiming that nearly 20 years earlier, they had spoken confidentially with the distributors about the idea of bottling purified water; and that PepsiCo misappropriated Joyce and Voigt's trade secrets in order to bottle and sell Aquafina water...
Jury Finds in TSMC's Favor in TSMC vs. SMIC Trade Secrets Trial
Posted on November 03, 2009By David Lammers - News Editor TSMC has won a nearly complete victory in the trade secrets trial ongoing in Oakland, Calif. After deliberating for several days, the 12-member jury delivered a verdict Tuesday morning, finding in TSMC's favor on the major issues...
Spring Design seeks injunction barring Nook sales
Posted on November 03, 2009By Ina Fried Beyond Binary - CNET News Could a legal challenge threaten the launch of Barnes & Noble's Nook e-reader? In a new lawsuit, start-up Spring Design is seeking not only monetary damages from Barnes & Noble, but also is looking to get an injunction barring sales of the Nook, which it says misappropriates its trade secrets...
Council Member Threatens To Sue For Convention Numbers
Posted on October 29, 2009Reported By Nancy Amons Twenty-three conventions have now confirmed bookings at the Music City Center, even though construction has yet to begin on the multi-million dollar facility. But it unclear how much these groups are paying to rent the new convention center because a lot of numbers are whited out on the contracts...
260 Chemicals in Secret Energy Cocktail
Posted on October 28, 2009New York's recently released review of the environmental risks (PDF) posed by natural gas production in the Marcellus Shale offers the clearest picture yet of the chemicals used in the drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. The document makes public the names of 260 chemicals, more than eight times as many as Pennsylvania state regulators have compiled...
IneoQuest Wins Trade Secret Case Against Ixia, Moves Forward With Its Own Legal Action
Posted on October 27, 2009SHIFT Communications Amanda Munroes IneoQuest Technologies, Inc., global provider of advanced quality and service assurance solutions for digital video, has been cleared by a California state court jury of all claims, including alleged trade secret claims, brought by Ixia...
Trial to begin in economic espionage case involving China
Posted on October 27, 2009By: Jaikumar Vijayan A jury trial is set to begin in a somewhat rare trade-secret theft case in which federal prosecutors are trying to prove that two engineers misappropriated trade secrets from a U.S. technology company to benefit China's government...
Starbucks, Former Exec Agree to Settlement
Posted on October 26, 2009The Starbucks Coffee Company announced that it is pleased that the company and Paul Twohig resolved a lawsuit that Starbucks filed against Twohig, who left the coffee company to join the Dunkin' Donuts team. As part of the settlement, Twohig will complete initial training but will otherwise not work at Dunkin' until January 15, 2010...
Rare economic espionage case going to trial
Posted on October 24, 2009By JORDAN ROBERTSON SAN FRANCISCO -- Two men accused of stealing computer chip blueprints -- and trying to tap the Chinese government to help launch a startup built on the contraband -- are becoming the first defendants charged with economic espionage to have their case heard by a jury...
IP Strategies for True Innovation
Posted on October 23, 2009By Joshua L. Cohen The Legal Intelligencer IP exclusionary rights provide a powerful commercial advantage. Patents confer the right to prevent others from making, using, selling, offering to sell or importing the patented invention. Similarly, trademarks can be enforced to prevent others from using a source identifier with goods or services in a manner likely to confuse consumers...
Phoenix claims rival stole its instant-on technology, sues ex-employee for breach of contract
Posted on October 23, 2009By Eric Lai Ratcheting up the already hard-fought competition in the instant-on market, Phoenix Technologies Ltd. is suing next-door rival DeviceVM Inc. for trade secret theft and a former employee now at DeviceVM for breach of contract. Milpitas, Calif...
Amsted wins round in trade secret fight
Posted on October 22, 2009Reuters Chicago-based Amsted Industries has won an initial determination at the International Trade Commission, where it had accused two U.S. and two Chinese companies of misappropriating trade secrets relating to manufacturing cast steel railway wheels...
U.S. Scientist Accused of Spying for Israel
Posted on October 22, 2009BY STEVEN J. DUBORD Former NASA scientist Stewart Nozette has been charged with attempting to sell classified information about U.S. military satellites to Israel. The FBI conducted a sting operation in which an agent posed as an operative with Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad...
Ex-Ford Worker Indicted in Secrets Theft
Posted on October 20, 2009By MATTHEW DOLAN A former product engineer at Ford Motor Co. stole more than 4,000 pages of documents containing trade secrets and tried to use the confidential papers to help secure a new job with at least one Chinese car company, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday...
Silicon Valley espionage case only second of kind in nation to go to trial
Posted on October 20, 2009By Howard Mintz San Jose Mercury News Lee, 44, and Ge, 36, are among just a handful of defendants to face federal charges under a section of the 13-year-old Economic Espionage Act, designed to prevent the illegal transfer of technology to foreign governments...
Baited and duped on Facebook
Posted on October 20, 2009By Mary Brandel When CIO Will Weider encouraged employees at Ministry Health Care and Affinity Health System in Wisconsin to use Facebook to spread the word about new programs and successful projects, he was surprised at the result: Few did so. "Little pieces of information put together the big picture," Winkler says...
Skype sees off one patent threat...
Posted on October 12, 2009By Joe Fay Skype is claiming a victory in one of the many IP suits that are plaguing the P2P phone company at the moment. Robert Miller, Skype's general counsel, said in a blog post the other day that the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit had ruled in favour of Skype and sort-of-ex-parent eBay, over a brace of patents asserted by Peer Communications Group...
Businesses crack down on workers using social network sites
Posted on October 12, 2009By Bonna Johnson THE TENNESSEAN Workplace restrictions on the digital world are forcing employees to give their fingers a rest, even though we've become a society that can't get enough of social networking sites and other online diversions. Among U...
Taking Time To Open Records
Posted on October 12, 2009By: Ben Dunsmoor KELOLAND The public's right to know what is going on with its government is why South Dakota's new open records law passed the legislature this year. Records that have been denied include the 911 tapes from the day Turner County Deputy Chad Mechels was shot near Marion, and the list of people who attend the Governor's annual Pheasant Hunt, which is considered proprietary information...
Reed Construction Data sues McGraw-Hill Construction, alleging corporate spying
Posted on October 09, 2009By: Sean Callahan New York--Reed Construction Data, a unit of Reed Elsevier, Thursday sued its chief competitor, McGraw-Hill Construction, alleging that Dodge, a unit of McGraw-Hill Construction that lists construction projects, has engaged in corporate spying since 2002...
Editorial: Obama bends promise on 'shield law'
Posted on October 09, 2009GHS The Obama administration has proposed changes to a shield bill in Congress that the bill's supporters believe would rob it of its original intent. The shield bill, commonly known as the Free Flow of Information Act and now before the Senate Judiciary Committee, establishes steps prosecutors must take before issuing subpoenas to force journalists to identify unnamed sources...
TSMC vs. SMIC Trade Secrets Trial Heats Up
Posted on October 09, 2009By: David Lammers TSMC vs. SMIC trade secrets trial going on now in an Oakland, Calif., courtroom featured several hours of testimony from SMIC corporate secretary Anne Chen, who testified that TSMC attorneys and executives failed to negotiate in good faith during a series of meetings in July and August 2006...
Lockheed Rival Seeks to Toss $37 Million Verdict
Posted on October 04, 2009By: R. Robin McDonald A Texas defense contractor found by an Atlanta federal jury last spring to have misappropriated trade secrets from Lockheed Martin Corp. has accused Lockheed of intentionally withholding evidence critical to its defense. The evidence that forms that basis of L-3 Comm's allegations is not open to public scrutiny because the motion, including 37 exhibits, was filed under seal by L-3 Comm attorneys who claimed confidentiality under a broad protective order agreed to by the companies in a companion case in U...
State hires contractors to secure wells
Posted on October 03, 2009By: Wesley Loy Alaska officials have hired two oilfield contractors to "winterize" Cook Inlet wells a California oil and gas producer recently abandoned as part of a liquidation plan in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Pacific Energy's abandoned assets need 'winterizing' to stave off problems, preserve value; cost could range up to $200,000...
Federal charges added for Meng
Posted on October 03, 2009BY SEAN O'SULLIVAN WILMINGTON -- A former DuPont Co. researcher is facing federal charges of involvement in the attempted theft of trade secrets. Hong Meng, 43, who already is facing civil charges, appeared before federal Magistrate Judge Mary Pat Thynge Friday to answer a criminal complaint alleging improper accessing of a protected computer...
Justices: No reason for railroad to share trade secrets with plaintiff
Posted on October 03, 2009By Steve Korris Texas Supreme Court Bexar County District Judge Karen Pozza stepped out of bounds when she ordered Union Pacific Railroad to share rate-setting secrets with personal injury lawyers, the Supreme Court of Texas ruled on Sept. 25. Pozza and Fourth District appeals judges in San Antonio thought a confidentiality order would protect Union Pacific trade secrets, but the high court justices feared it might not...
Citizen of the People's Republic of China indicted by the U.S. in scheme to steal Trade Secrets
Posted on September 30, 2009A citizen of the People's Republic of China was charged in four-count federal Indictment today in connection with his scheme to steal trade secrets and proprietary information relating to computer systems and software with environmental applications from his New Jersey employer, Acting U...
Never reveal a company's trade secrets to a rival
Posted on September 29, 2009By Cathy Mputhia When I worked for a computer software manufacturing firm, I was the chairperson of a team charged with creating and developing innovative software for use by our customers. Due largely to my efforts, my team came up with innovative software solutions for our clients...
Tentative settlement reached in Luna Innovations suit
Posted on September 27, 2009By Laurence Hammack Luna Innovations Inc. has reached a tentative settlement that would reduce a $36.3 million jury verdict to a sum that no longer endangers the Roanoke-based company. The high-tech firm and Hansen Medical Inc. "have developed a framework for settlement," attorneys on both sides of the case wrote in a letter Thursday to bankruptcy court Judge William Stone...
Scruggs bribery evidence may come into other cases
Posted on September 24, 2009AP Jackson - Grand jury testimony and other evidence from the judicial corruption scheme that snagged former Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter could spill over into two other cases. DeLaughter pleaded guilty July 30 to a federal obstruction charge in a case involving Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, who was one of the most successful tort lawyers in the country before he went to federal prison...
MediZine Named in Intellectual Property Lawsuit
Posted on September 24, 2009Marketing Technology Solutions, Inc Marketing Technology Solutions, Inc. ("MTS"), owner and operator of the health website QualityHealth.com, has today filed a lawsuit alleging that MediZine, LLC infringed MTS's intellectual property rights and misappropriated trade secrets and other confidential information by utilizing MTS-copyrighted online lead generation software in support of RemedyLife...
Navigating the Intellectual Property Maze
Posted on September 22, 2009By Paul Craane In transforming biomass to power, biofuels or other chemicals, equipment is used to carry out a process to provide a product. Innovation as to the equipment, the process or the product may cause a company to seek patent protection. Depending on the nature of the product and the company's business plan, patent protection may not be the only choice, or the best choice...
DuPont Scientist Accused of Stealing Company's Trade Secrets
Posted on September 20, 2009By Robert F. Service A Chinese-born scientist, one of the leading researchers in the field of next-generation display technologies, has been fired by DuPont, which alleges he attempted to steal company secrets. The scientist, Hong Meng, now faces both a civil lawsuit from the company and a criminal investigation by the U...
Four convicted for stealing trade secrets
Posted on September 20, 2009By Song Shengxia Three employees of a steel engineering company in North China's Tianjin were convicted Wednesday on charges of stealing commercial secrets from their former employer, a steel company in Wuhan, Hubei Province. The Wuhan prosecutor told the Global Times Thursday that Tianjin Huanbohai Steel Engineering Technology Company was accused of using "improper means" to obtain commercial secrets from WISDRI Engineering & Research Company...
Supreme Court says school tests aren't public records
Posted on September 17, 2009BY JIM SIEGEL THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH The Ohio Supreme Court today sided with the Cincinnati Public School officials who argued that annual semester exams given to all ninth-graders are not public records subject to disclosure. In a 5-2 decision, the court said the tests fall within an exemption to public records law for trade secrets...
Co-op seeks to keep more than 500 documents secret
Posted on September 16, 2009BY TRIBUNE STAFF A Billings-based cooperative, the Southern Montana Electric Generation & Transmission Cooperative, met a Sept. 4 deadline for filing a brief in a long-standing open-records dispute with a Helena group. The Montana Environmental Information Center filed suit against the city of Great Falls and SME, arguing a number of records being withheld from public view by the city should be released...
Lawsuit alleges Manatee employee stole trade secrets
Posted on September 16, 2009By Michael Braga MANATEE COUNTY - Contact lens manufacturer Benz Research has filed a lawsuit against a former employee, claiming that he stole trade secrets with the intent of selling them to competitors. "The misappropriation of Benz Research's trade secrets by Sturgis were done willfully, maliciously and for the purpose of injuring Benz Research," the lawsuit filed in circuit court in Manatee County says...
DuPont sues Chinese scientist for trade-secret theft
Posted on September 13, 2009By: Jaikumar Vijayan For the second time in less than three years, a research scientist at DuPont has been accused of misappropriating trade secrets from the company and attempting to use them to build competing products in China. In a lawsuit filed in Delaware Chancery Court, DuPont accused Hong Meng, a former senior research scientist at the company, of stealing data on a new, thin-computer display technology called "organic light emitting diode" or OLED...
Neb. election systems company sues former workers
Posted on September 10, 2009By: JEAN ORTIZ Associated Press Writer OMAHA, Neb. - Election Systems & Software has sued two former employees and an Indiana elections consulting firm, accusing them of illegally using the company's software and trade secrets. A lawsuit filed Thursday on the company's behalf in U...
Oregon winemaker lawsuit watched by industry
Posted on September 09, 2009By: The Associated Press A legal battle over the departure of winemaker Anthony Rynders from the Domaine Serene Vineyards and Winery is being closely watched by an industry that relies heavily on trade secrets. In the lawsuit, the winery alleges that Rynders was dishonest, violated company policy that he make wine exclusively for Domaine Serene, used Domaine Serene equipment in his outside winemaking venture, gave inside information to a competitor, delayed telling owners about his plans to leave and ultimately presented the company with an ultimatum demanding a dramatic pay raise as his price of staying on...
Trial This Week to Consider TSMC Claims Against SMIC
Posted on September 09, 2009By: Staff-Semiconductor International TSMC alleges that SMIC violated a 2005 settlement between the two companies, allegedly using TSMC's trade secrets in SMIC's 130 nm and beyond products. TSMC claims that SMIC's alleged use of the trade secrets should result in termination of a TSMC patent license to SMIC, and also negates an agreement not to sue that was part of the 2005 settlement...
Utilities' smart meters save money, but erode privacy
Posted on September 06, 2009By Andrew Maykuth Inquirer Staff Writer Those new smart meters Peco Energy Co. and other utilities will install soon are being touted as money-savers that will give customers more control over their electric bills. "The drive to retool the United States' electricity generation and distribution networks may inadvertently raise a monster with unparalleled abilities to invade residential privacy," Elias Leake Quinn, a research analyst at the Center for Energy and Environmental Security in Boulder, Colo...
The 'Loud' and Luscious Call of Guitar Gods
Posted on September 05, 2009By John Anderson Davis Guggenheim, the Oscar-winning director of "An Inconvenient Truth" moves from global warming to global rock with "It Might Get Loud." The electric guitar has dominated rock music. The principals here, however are strictly hands-on, explaining and demonstrating what it is they do: Achieving a singular sound that is distinctive and personal amid the clangor of mainstream musical traffic...
Citadel Can Sue to Enforce Non-Compete Contracts
Posted on September 05, 2009By Andrew M. Harris Citadel Investment Group LLC defeated a bid by former executives to dismiss a claim that contracts they signed while working for the $12 billion hedge- fund management firm barred them from building their own business after they left...
Judge tosses trade secret theft case against Flir
Posted on September 05, 2009By: Brent Hunsberger The Oregonian A federal judge in Texas on Monday threw out most of a trade secret theft case brought by defense giant Raytheon Co. against a subsidiary of Wilsonville-based Flir Systems, Inc. Raytheon sued Indigo Systems Corp. in March 2007 claiming it had hired dozens of Raytheon employees over time to learn trade secrets of its infrared cameras...
Peters' Eaton links weighed
Posted on August 31, 2009By: JIMMIE E. GATES A judge will decide whether all documents from an investigation to determine if then-Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter was improperly influenced during a civil case by former Hinds County District Attorney Ed Peters should be kept confidential...
Strip photo galleries in legal battle over trade secrets
Posted on August 30, 2009By Steve Green High-end photography companies with galleries at Las Vegas casino-resorts may be headed for a legal showdown, with one accusing the other of misappropriating its trade secrets. Peter Lik USA says it has galleries in Las Vegas at the Forum Shops at Caesars, the Venetian and Mandalay Place; and elsewhere around the country and in Peter Lik's native Australia...
Ad agency sued over Bing commercials
Posted on August 29, 2009By: Nick Eaton: Microsoft reporter Seattle Pi Blogs The advertising agency Microsoft hired to promote Bing has been sued for patent infringement over a commercial for the search engine during NBC's "The Philanthropist," according to Advertising Age. Denizen, a small ad company registered in Delaware, claims an advertising concept in which a commercial serves to advance the plot of the TV show during which it runs...
Report: Man stole trade secrets
Posted on August 29, 2009By:Robert Napper and Beth Burger Bradenton Herald Manatee County Sheriff's Office detectives arrested Darrin Stephen Zaza, 44, after viewing surveillance video of him entering a conference room in a local Comfort Suite motel, where his former boss was planning to hold the event...
Was Twitter Document Theft and Publication by TechCrunch Legal?
Posted on August 26, 2009By Jeffrey D. Neuburger Unauthorized access to corporate information in general (regardless of the manner in which the items were obtained) may constitute trade secret misappropriation. Most states have enacted some version of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA), which defines the term very broadly to include not only a secret process or formula but also any other "information" that has economic value as a result of being kept secret...
Language Line sues over trade secrets
Posted on August 25, 2009Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal: Language Line Services Inc. and Tele-Interpreters LLC said they filed suit against Voiance Language Services LLC, alleging infringement of trade secrets. Monterey-based Language Line said Voiance, which is based in Tucson, Ariz...
GATA Presses Fed to give Up Its Golden Secrets
Posted on August 24, 2009By: Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer, GATA Yesterday GATA's Washington-area law firm filed with the Federal Reserve Board an administrative appeal of the Fed's most recent refusal to grant us access to the agency's records involving the U.S. gold reserve...
Trade secrets: the iron ore wars
Posted on August 22, 2009By: John Garnaut, Beijing Three weeks ago, global strategy chief Doug Ritchie checked into Shanghai's downtown Four Seasons hotel to find the entire floor had been cleared of other guests. His only companion was Ian Bauert, Rio's global head of iron ore marketing, who had arrived before him...
Chinese spy who stole B-1 bomber, space shuttle secrets is convicted
Posted on August 21, 2009VANCOUVERITE SANTA ANA, CA-- The full extent of China's economic and military espionage in the U.S. has come to light following the conviction of a former Rockwell and Boeing engineer from Orange County. In his ruling read in court, Carney found Chung guilty of conspiracy to commit economic espionage, six counts of economic espionage to benefit a foreign country, one count of acting as an agent of the People's Republic of China and one count of making false statements to the FBI...
Trade secrets stolen, 2 arrested
Posted on August 21, 2009Reported by: WPTV staff BOCA RATON, FL- Boca Raton Police have arrested two men on suspicion of stealing trade secrets from the company they worked for. The company alleged that its chief operating officer, Christian Matteis, and Leonard Tambasco, the executive flight director, had stolen office furniture and equipment, client lists and client information, and tampered with computer files...
Trade secrets - not so secret!
Posted on August 19, 2009By Alicia DeLeon Torres I'm on the Los Angeles to San Diego Amtrak afternoon commuter train. The guy across from me is looking at his laptop screen. As he scrolls through his documents, I easily see the pretty graphics, staff assignments and other information I'm sure that I - and others on the train - are not meant to see...
Ranch-style homes have rich history in Lincoln
Posted on August 17, 2009By LINDA ULRICH Lincoln Journal Star When the Homebuilders Association of Lincoln began in the early 1950s, the Petersons and other builders built an early model ranch, called a "trade secrets" home, in conjunction with the National Association of Homebuilders...
China imposes moratorium on "chaotic" steel industry
Posted on August 16, 2009By Proactive Investors China China has long been tackling the steel industry's overcapacity, but has now called the industry "chaotic" and linked the issue to the recent Rio scandal, in which four employees of the mining giant have been charged for trade secrets infringement and bribery...
Fog hangs over tourism spending
Posted on August 16, 2009By Denise Jewell Gee NEWS NIAGARA REPORTER The Niagara Tourism and Convention Corp. has been selective in what it has chosen to disclose to the City of Niagara Falls so that some records don't end up in the hands of the public. That information it has withheld includes: ? Salaries of its employees, aside from its president...
Reading Word: The dark side of IP
Posted on August 14, 2009By:Sigrid Caroline Schroder DC Business Strategies Examiner US sales of Microsoft Word are banned as of October. Most businesses think of IP from the light side: protecting their inventions, innovations, creations and "aha moments" from the onslaught of competition...
Prosecutors nod Rio Tinto employees' arrest over trade secrets infringement, bribery
Posted on August 11, 2009Chinaview Editor: Yan Prosecutors have approved the arrest of four employees of the Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto Ltd. on charges of trade secrets infringement and bribery, according to a statement of China's Supreme People's Procuratorate late Tuesday...
AISD trustees to decide whether to move forward with lawsuit
Posted on August 10, 2009By American-Statesman Staff Austin trustees are scheduled to decide Monday whether to move forward with a lawsuit to keep documents related to their search for a new superintendent from being released to the public. The lawsuit was filed in June without board approval because, according to the school district's attorneys, the district had to meet a deadline for filing a suit challenging Attorney General Greg Abbott office's ruling that certain documents from the search be made public...
RHJ Will Sweeten Bid For GM's European Unit
Posted on August 08, 2009By DANA CIMILLUCA Belgian investment firm RHJ International plans to sweeten its bid for General Motors Co.'s European unit in an effort to overcome German government opposition to its bid. A deal with Magna and Sberbank poses risks for GM that a deal with RHJ would not...
Health care board talks should be more open
Posted on August 07, 2009By: Patterson Irrigator Editorial Board The Del Puerto Health Care District board of directors voted unanimously to extend the district's purchase agreement with Keystone for a new health center. There was no public discussion on the matter. "The acts of attempting to amend zoning laws or choose a different parcel of property to acquire don't come remotely close to falling within the definition set forth in the civil code," Ewert wrote in an e-mail to the Irrigator...
Local company counter-sues printer giant
Posted on August 06, 2009By: Ryan Carter Hacienda Heights-based Green Project Inc. alleges in a lawsuit filed July 27 in U.S. District Court in Oregon that Epson America Inc. and its parent, Japan-based Seiko Epson Corp., sent a company spy into the facility to gain access to trade secrets...
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Rules on a Trade Secret Matter
Posted on August 06, 2009By: Keith Clouse The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently vacated summary judgment in a trade secret case. Cudd Pressure Control Inc. v. Roles, No. 08-20389 (5th Cir. June 11, 2009), Ronnie Roles worked for Cudd Pressure Control Inc. until he (and several other former Cudd employees) joined a newly-formed competing business...
IBM can't try again to keep ex-M&A chief from Dell
Posted on August 02, 2009By Erik Larson U.S. District Judge Stephen Robinson in White Plains, New York, rejected IBM's claim this week that it had new evidence to include in a motion for a preliminary injunction against the ex-employee, David L. Johnson. Robinson denied IBM's first request June 26, saying it would unfairly hurt Johnson's career...
Brokerages Not Worried About Rise in Code Theft Allegations
Posted on July 31, 2009By: James Ramage Conviction aside, recent high profile allegations of code copying at Goldman Sachs and UBS have the industry's attention. But electronic trading execs say that even though proprietary technology security is a priority, the risk of employees copying trade secret coding to use elsewhere isn't a major concern...
Telecoms balk at broadband mapping requirements
Posted on July 30, 2009By: Kenneth Corbin It would seem that the push and pull between government officials trying to get sound data about broadband deployment and the providers who aren't too eager to divulge their trade secrets continues. Dow Jones is reporting that leading industry associations, including US Telecom, NCTA and CTIA are appealing to the director of the National Telecommunications Information Administration to relax the level of detail the agency is requesting from the providers...
Vocational training hopes to turn farmers into artisans
Posted on July 27, 2009t's true to say that some artisans try to keep certain trade secrets. Lai Phu Ban, an artisan in Buoi Village in Tay Ho District, Ha Noi, is an example. He masters a unique technique for making sac phong paper, which is made from a special type of paper, called sac, and in the past this paper was used exclusively by kings and the royal court...
Juvie 'trade secrets' suit alive
Posted on July 25, 2009By Jennifer Learn-Andes jandes@timesleader.com Recent letter from lawyer for owner Greg Zappala critical of state auditors. A controversial 2004 Pittston Township detention center "trade secrets" lawsuit against former Luzerne County controller Steve Flood and two state welfare officials is still alive...
Peter Jackson and Hayao Miyazaki Hit Comic-Con
Posted on July 25, 2009By MICHAEL CIEPLY SAN DIEGO -- Few directors are as revered by the fervent fans who attend Comic-Con as Peter Jackson, and he showed up before a rapturous crowd of 6,500 Friday afternoon with a plea. Mr. Jackson, the New Zealander who is lord of the "Rings" trilogy and all things fantasy and horror, was on hand to promote a science fiction thriller directed by a protégé, Neill Blomkamp...
O'Brien: Corporate secrecy under the microscope after Twitter leaks
Posted on July 22, 2009By Chris O'Brien The publication of internal documents about Twitter that were filched by a hacker caused fans across Silicon Valley to express their outrage. For all the controversy, my own gut reaction after reading the notes and financial projections: "Is that it?" These were the great trade secrets that the valley fretted could undermine Twitter's future and send it plunging off a cliff? Hardly...
A.R.M.S. Inc. Wins Trade Secret and Breach of Fiduciary Duty Lawsuit against Stephen P. Troy, Jr. and Troy Industries, Inc
Posted on July 21, 2009By: Scott & Bush Ltd. WEST BRIDGEWATER, Mass. - (Business Wire) Atlantic Research Marketing Systems (A.R.M.S.®) Inc., with more than 40 National Stock Numbers [NSN's] in service to the U.S., and foreign militaries worldwide, specializes in advancing the capabilities of small arms, crew served, and anti-armor weapons in function, reliability and accuracy...
China dismisses links to engineer convicted in US of economic espionage
Posted on July 21, 2009By: Associated Press BEIJING (AP) -- China on Tuesday denied links to a Chinese-born engineer who was convicted in the U.S. last week of stealing trade secrets for China during his 30-year career at Boeing and Rockwell International. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a brief statement the charges against former Boeing Co...
Ex-Boeing Engineer Guilty Of Stealing Trade Secrets For China
Posted on July 19, 2009By: Kathy Shwiff DOW JONES NEWSWIRES A former engineer at Rockwell International and Boeing Co. (BA) was convicted Thursday of economic espionage - the first such conviction under a 1996 law - and acting as an agent of the People's Republic of China...
China's Rio Tinto Arrests. Everyone Just Move Along....
Posted on July 16, 2009By Steve Dickinson China Law Blog The Rio Tinto employees are accused of conducting industrial espionage. Specifically, they are accused of bribery and theft of trade secrets. These acts are crimes under Chinese law. Therefore, if the accusations are factual, the four Rio Tinto employees are subject to criminal sanction in China, with typical prison sentences of up to four years...
The Real Reason Jefferies Loves UBS Employees
Posted on July 15, 2009By Greg Michaels It turns out the little healthcare banking scuffle between UBS and Jefferies wasn't the first time these two titans have clashed over some form of theft. UBS confirmed yesterday that it charged three former members of its algorithmic trading group with stealing 25,000 lines of source code and taking the trade secrets to Jefferies...
Cloud computing may create new venues for high-tech criminals
Posted on July 13, 2009By: Brandon Bailey High-tech crime is always evolving. Ask Matt Parrella, the federal government's top tech prosecutor in the Bay Area, who was chasing crooked telemarketers in Nevada in the 1990s when he first noticed the con artists peddling bogus investments were moving online...
Ultracade Cabinet Founder Faces Federal Fraud Charges
Posted on July 12, 2009The former owner of Ultracade Technologies, a maker of MAME-style arcade cabinets, is looking at a 35-count federal indictment for fraud, theft of trade secrets, and trafficking counterfeit goods. The charges therefore mean not only was Global VR defrauded, but also licensees Namco, Nintendo and Taito, whose games ran on the cabinets...
Two indicted over theft of arcade software
Posted on July 12, 2009By: Henry K. Lee Chronicle Staff Writer David Russell Foley of Los Gatos and Michael Daddona were named in a 35-count indictment unsealed this week. The indictment, handed up July 1 by a grand jury in San Jose, includes charges of conspiracy, trafficking in counterfeit goods, theft of trade secrets, mail and wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and bank fraud...
The Hartford Accuses Arch of Stealing Trade Secrets
Posted on July 11, 2009By Pat Speer Insurance Networking News The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. filed a lawsuit this week that includes a lengthy, detailed complaint against its competitor New York-based Arch Insurance Group Inc., and its Bermuda-based parent Arch Capital Group Ltd...
Former employee accused of stealing secrets from Goldman Sachs Group
Posted on July 11, 2009By Mike Hughlett Tribune reporter Chicago-based Teza Technologies has suspended a new employee accused by federal prosecutors of stealing trade secrets from his former employer, Goldman Sachs Group. Sergey Aleynikov was arrested Friday in New Jersey by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for allegedly stealing software code he had designed for Goldman Sachs...
Creative Commons for Privacy
Posted on July 08, 2009Protecting Personal Information via Contract vs. Intellectual Property Privacy Bar Camp DC Aaron Titus Intellectual property (IP) law is not an appropriate legal framework to protect personal information because nobody owns personal information. Personal information are facts, which are not copyrightable...
Your Money or Your Life - DK GreenRoots
Posted on July 06, 2009By: TXsharon Ninety-two percent of the 278 known chemicals used to produce natural gas have adverse health effects including endocrine disruption, neurological disorders and cancer. Chemical information is limited because the industry claims formulas are trade secrets...
Ex-Partner Accused of AIP Trade Secret Theft
Posted on July 05, 2009By JOE HARRIS A former managing partner of American Institutional Partners masterminded a scheme to steal the company's trade secrets from its owner, Pelican Equity claims in Federal Court. Pelican Equity, which owns AIP's rights, says Robert Brazell partnered with Stephen Norris to form Talos Partners in order to steal AIP's confidential busines information for their own gain...
Dialysis centers locked in battle
Posted on July 04, 2009By BRIAN NEWSOME McCLATCHY-TRIBUNE A Colorado Springs doctors' group that accepted at least $250,000 from dialysis giant DaVita is now the target of a lawsuit claiming the group is aiding a new rival, according to a Colorado Springs newspaper. DaVita, which operates dialysis centers in Colorado Springs, claims Pikes Peak Nephrology in Colorado Springs violated a non-compete agreement, disclosed DaVita's trade secrets and solicited employees to go to Liberty, according to The Gazette newspaper in Colorado Springs...
Data Theft Attacks Still Driving Underground
Posted on July 02, 2009"Virtually anyone with a computer and Internet access can wreak havoc. In the U.S., hacker attacks have been documented on county or state government sites". Trend charts the related losses among business tied to data theft malware in the multiple billions worldwide, with trade secrets and other information that helps rivals gain a market advantage over each other at the middle of the activity...
N Korea-Burma link suspected
Posted on July 01, 2009By Jonathan Soble in Tokyo Kim Jong-il, North Korea's leader, has long been suspected of trading arms and arms-making technology with unsavoury allies, either for cash or for secrets such as the nuclear expertise he is believed to have obtained from Pakistan...
IBM loses injunction against Dell executive
Posted on June 30, 2009By Jim Finkle BOSTON (Reuters) - A U.S. judge turned down a request from International Business Machines Corp to bar its former head of mergers and acquisitions from working at Dell Inc over allegations that he would disclose trade secrets. The ruling means the executive, David Johnson, will be able to continue to work as Dell's senior vice president of corporate strategy while IBM proceeds with a lawsuit that claims he violated a non-compete agreement...
Former Technical Director of Wheeling Paint Company Indicted for Alleged Theft of Trade Secrets Before Joining Competitor
Posted on June 30, 2009A former northwest suburban man who was arrested in March was indicted this week on federal charges for stealing trade secrets from his former employer, Valspar Corp., in Wheeling, federal law enforcement officials announced today. The defendant, David Yen Lee, was charged with five counts of theft of trade secrets in violation of the federal Economic Espionage Act in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury...
UPDATE 3-IBM loses injunction against Dell executive
Posted on June 29, 2009By: Jim Finkle BOSTON, June 26 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge turned down a request from International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) to bar its former head of mergers and acquisitions from working at Dell Inc (DELL.O) over allegations that he would disclose trade secrets...
Hexagon Claims Trade Secret Victory Against Wenzel, Xspect
Posted on June 27, 2009Hexagon Metrology today announces a litigation victory in its dispute over alleged misappropriation of trade secrets from its market-leading PC-DMIS inspection and measurement software, which is developed and published by Hexagon Metrology division Wilcox Associates, Inc...
Rev. Dollar Blamed for Stealing Trade Secret
Posted on June 26, 2009By: BET.com Staff TV mega-preacher Creflo Dollar, one of several high-profile ministers being accused of fleecing their flocks to finance their lavish lifestyles, is being sued by a California businessman who says the pastor stole his business idea of charging followers a monthly fee for devotional text messages...
Questions still unanswered on Karoo gas exploration
Posted on June 23, 2009By: Guy Rogers ENVIRONMENT & TOURISM EDITOR THE company that wants to explore for gas in the Cranemere area of the Karoo has refused to answer questions raised in terms of the required public participation process prescribed by South African mining law...
Magicians Take Illusions to Court
Posted on June 22, 2009By MONA R. LITT MINEOLA, N.Y. (CN) - A young illusionist claims older magician and TV personality Criss Angel is cheating him of royalties for his magic tricks. Jacob Spinney claims Angel agreed to pay him 25 percent of net profits for rights to Spinney's Chair Self-Levitation, Spinney's Chair Self-Suspension and Spinney's Fork-Bending gimmicks...
DeLaughter: Same names, different case
Posted on June 21, 2009By: JIMMIE E. GATES They are also figures in Scruggs judicial bribery probe Two former lawyers and a former state auditor - all of them imprisoned in a judicial bribery scandal - are expected to be subpoenaed for sworn statements in an unrelated bribery case involving the same judge...
Irving's Excentus Corp. says Safeway stole idea for gas rewards program | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Retail | Dallas Business News
Posted on June 20, 2009By MARIA HALKIAS An Irving-based company is suing Tom Thumb's parent, Safeway Inc., saying it stole trade secrets to create its PowerPump gasoline rewards program. Excentus Corp. said Thursday it has filed a lawsuit against Safeway; its gift card subsidiary, Blackhawk; and its Texas chains, Tom Thumb and Randalls, in the U...
American Airlines Loses Trade Secrets Dispute with Delta and Former Employee
Posted on June 19, 2009By Andrew Longstreth As Crain's New York Business reported last month, Delta announced in 2007 that John F. Kennedy International Airport would become one of its major hubs so it could "challenge American Airline's dominance," even as American unveiled its new $1...
Rodale Seeks to Protect 'Trade Secrets' in Florida Investigation
Posted on June 16, 2009In an ongoing investigation into the sales and marketing practices of publisher Rodale, the Florida attorney general's office decided to make public the information it gathered. Rodale, publisher of Men's Health and other magazines, recently filed a petition with a Florida circuit court to keep the information private...
Luna challenges $36.3 million verdict
Posted on June 14, 2009By: Sarah Bruyn Jones Luna Innovations Inc. has asked a California judge to throw out a $36.3 million jury verdict against it, arguing the award is based on a flawed interpretation of law. Even as the legal battle with Hansen Medical Inc. continues, Luna's chief operating officer said there is no bad blood between the two companies and he would be willing to work with Hansen to apply Luna's technology to Hansen's medical device...
FCC agrees to conceal Apple iPhone trade secrets indefinitely
Posted on June 13, 2009"On May 28, 2009 or eleven days prior to Apple's unveiling of their next generation iPhones, Apple sought short and indefinite confidential treatment for documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission," MacNN reports. "In the first term, Apple requested that certain documents be withheld from the public for a short term of forty-five days...
One Big Fracking Problem for Oil and Gas Industry
Posted on June 12, 2009By: Kirsten Korosec BNET Energy Blog Legislation introduced this week that targets hydraulic fracturing -- a technique used to access vast new fields for drilling - is pitting the oil and gas industry against environmentalists in a debate over public health, federal versus state regulation and the protection of industry trade secrets...
IP Suit Against Marvell Semiconductor Dismissed for Lack of Standing
Posted on June 10, 2009By: Zusha Elinson Jasmine Networks Inc.'s epic trade secret case against Marvell Semiconductor Inc., featuring a general counsel's accidental voice mail confession, was suddenly dismissed (.pdf) Wednesday. Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Thomas Edwards ruled that Jasmine doesn't have standing to sue because the bankrupt company had sold off the trade secrets in question...
Lockheed Wins Trade-Secret Trial
Posted on June 09, 2009By: ANDY PASZTOR Lockheed Martin Corp. won a $30 million jury verdict against L-3 Communications Corp. last week over the use of Lockheed proprietary data to refurbish P-3 maritime patrol aircraft for South Korea. Although the jury concluded that L-3 willfully and maliciously misused Lockheed's data, it didn't award punitive damages...
Price Chopper sues competitor, alleges trade secret theft
Posted on June 07, 2009By: Steven Cook Gazette Reporter Alleged thefts of Price Chopper advertising fliers in the Southern Tier have prompted the Rotterdam-based supermarket chain to file a $20 million lawsuit against a competitor. Giant, the suit alleges, used those trade secrets to gain a competitive advantage over Price Chopper and may have been taking trade secrets for years...
SEC Ready to Require More Pay Disclosures
Posted on June 06, 2009By: KARA SCANNELL The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to propose that companies disclose in general terms how they compensate lower-ranking employees, expanding disclosures for the first time beyond the executive suite. The proposals wouldn't require companies to say how much they pay these star performers, but they would have to disclose in more-general terms how lower-ranking employees are paid, especially when it affects the company's overall risk management...
Woman Sprayed With Pesticide Can't Get List Of Chemicals Because They're A Trade Secret
Posted on June 04, 2009By: Chris Walters A North Carolina woman out walking her dog last month was sprayed in the face with a gypsy moth pesticide, and subsequently developed "a severe rash and other flu-like symptoms, breathing complications, and nausea for several days." Unfortunately, her doctor can't treat her properly because the company that makes the spray won't tell him what's in it...
First economic espionage trial begins in US
Posted on June 03, 2009By: GILLIAN FLACCUS Associated Press Writer SANTA ANA, Calif.--Chung, a Chinese-born engineer, is accused of working as a spy for China for more than 30 years while employed at Rockwell International and then Boeing Co. Chung has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, economic espionage, lying to federal agents, obstruction of justice and acting as a foreign agent...
Drug Agency May Reveal More Data on Actions
Posted on June 02, 2009By GARDINER HARRIS The Obama administration plans to announce on Tuesday that it is setting up a task force within the agency to recommend ways to reveal more information about F.D.A. decisions, possibly including the disclosure of now secret data about drugs and devices under study...
Obama's Public-Private Cybersecurity Challenge
Posted on June 01, 2009By: Arik Hesseldahl CYBERSPACE POLICY REPORT In a 38-page report released May 29 on the government's 60-day review of cyberspace policy, the Administration said the nation is at a "crossroads," where digital information permeates national life, but that it's also using infrastructure which is inherently insecure and vulnerable to attacks that can cause devastating disruptions...
The PS3 Slim and PSP Go! Are Real, Might Be Revealed at E3 - So says an insider
Posted on May 31, 2009The gaming industry is filled with secrets, unannounced plans and ambitious but unrevealed projects. That's why there will always be rumors and speculations flying around the Internet and landing on related websites depending on how true they are or on what they focus on...
Land ownership creates obstacle
Posted on May 30, 2009By: Metin Münir - Milliyet Behind the fuss of the law drafted for de-mining the Syrian border being discussed in Parliament is who will own the land after the mines are cleared. The common belief among the opposition is that the address is evident. Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül made the following statement in Parliament a while ago: "We opened a bid for the whole area...
IBM Sues Its Ex-M&A Chief for Taking a Job at Dell
Posted on May 29, 2009BY: MAUREEN O'GARA IBM is standing on the non-compete Johnson signed in 2005 and accuses him of misappropriating its trade secrets. This time it's former M&A chief David Johnson who's bound for Dell. Last time it was chip guru Mark Papermaster after he was hired by Apple to be head of iPod and iPhone engineering...
Do Pirates Use The Internet To Stalk Their Targets?
Posted on May 27, 2009Filetwt.com Services may be used only for lawful purposes. Transmission, distribution or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation, including export control laws, is prohibited. This includes, without limitation, material protected by patent, copyright, trademark, service mark, trade secret or other intellectual property rights...
SecureWorks buys VeriSign unit for $40M-$50M
Posted on May 27, 2009By: AtlanTech The privately held managed security services company has agreed to acquire the assets of VeriSign Inc.'s managed security services business, according to a Securities & Exchange Commission filing. SecureWorks monitors corporate networks and helps protect against online attacks from crooks looking to steal financial and other information...
Meet the Merchant: Playing it smart
Posted on May 26, 2009By: Simone Roch Hope Standard "A logo is also your identify, customers see a graphic and they immediately think of you...."One of the secrets to operating a successful business in Hope is joining forces to offer your customers a wide variety of services...
Contamination concerns rise out of gas wells
Posted on May 25, 2009By: Adam Chodak When Lisa Bracken moved next to Divide Creek in western Colorado, she saw her 60 acres of undeveloped land as something of a wildlife refuge. But over the past few years, Bracken has watched the wildlife - especially the vegetation - die off...
How to spot a trade secret: mosquito net ruling explains
Posted on May 22, 2009The judge listed 11 reasons why the duty of confidence was owed, including that Skovmand was a consultant employed to develop new products; he was subject to the company's direction; much of the work was carried out by people employed by the company; the material was the result of advice from other people as well as Skovmand; and the company had paid for the raw materials used in the work...
TRADE SECRETS IN A DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT
Posted on May 22, 2009BY: VICTORIA A. CUNDIFF The law of trade secrets is long-established: to obtain the court's assistance in enforcing trade secret rights, the trade secret owner must consistently take measures that are reasonable under the circumstances to protect its trade secrets...
Congressmen want automakers to cough up diagnostic codes
Posted on May 21, 2009By John Timmer As automobiles become more complex, repairing them is requiring increasingly sophisticated tools, such as interfaces into their computerized internal diagnostic systems. Congress is now considering a bill that would give everyone equal access to the required technology...
Vermont Acts to Make Drug Makers' Gifts Public
Posted on May 20, 2009By NATASHA SINGER The law, scheduled to take effect on July 1, is believed to be the most stringent state effort to regulate the marketing of medical products to doctors. In Congress, Senators Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, and Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin, have sponsored a bill requiring disclosure of pharmaceutical industry payments to doctors...
Protecting your company's trade secrets
Posted on May 18, 2009BY JOE CLEVELAND Last year, a former Intel design engineer was charged with allegedly stealing $1 billion worth of trade secrets relating to Intel's next generation microprocessor. The engineer was working at Intel when he was hired by Advanced Micro Devices, an Intel competitor...
Mayo Clinic, doctor battle over software rights
Posted on May 17, 2009By Walter F. Roche Jr. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review The Mayo Clinic, the famed health care organization, and its data processing partner Cerner Corp. are asking a federal judge to slap a gag order on a key former employee to bar him from even speaking about a new health technology product...
MARKETING 'GURU' SHARES TRADE SECRETS
Posted on May 16, 2009By: SHA:mh Mike Holland spoke about converting enquiries into sales and told delegates that a company's first point of contact for a potential customer is often what kills a sales lead. Mike explained: "For a start there's the telephone system. Taking too long to answer a call will see a large proportion of potential customers simply hanging up - and they won't ring back...
Feuding companies find answers in judge's silence
Posted on May 14, 2009BY JANINE ANDERSON California-based Clorox sued SCJ last month over the hiring of Tim Bailey, then Clorox's vice president of product supply. To keep Bailey from starting work, Clorox requested a restraining order. SCJ has jumped on that possibility, and filed a motion Tuesday asking for dismissal of the suit...
Thieves who turned super cops
Posted on May 13, 2009By: Latha Jishnu Ben-Atar, professor of history at Fordham University of New York, is among the more interesting thinkers I've met on intellectual property (IP) issues. Why did the history professor write Trade Secrets? Apart from the usual academic reasons, he says there was another compelling motive -- to remind Americans of their past so that they have a better understanding of why piracy is now happening in other parts of the world...
Minnesota Court: Release Source Code of Breath-Testing Machines
Posted on May 11, 2009By David Kravets Drunken-driving convicts in Minnesota are intoxicated over a recent state high court ruling allowing defense experts to examine the source code of breath-testing machines. The state and CMI are involved in a separate legal flap about whether the maker of the Intoxilyzer 500EN should turn over the code to the state...
Vision files suit against five former employees
Posted on May 10, 2009Las Vegas Sun The defendants are accused of releasing confidential information and trade secrets to attempt to convince Vision customers and companies it does business with to enter into new contracts with the defendants and terminate their contracts with Vision...
Trade secrets: Bears GM discusses Cutler trade, his conservative image
Posted on May 09, 2009BY BRAD BIGGS Landing Jay Cutler finally has given Jerry Angelo, nearly eight years into his tenure as Bears general manager, someone he believes is capable of becoming a franchise quarterback. That makes everyone's job at Halas Hall a little easier, but that doesn't mean the work stops...
Computer bought online holds defense secrets
Posted on May 09, 2009By: Darleen Hartley Security controlling Lockheed Martin's computer systems apparently is tighter than their recycling program. It is being reported that one of their computers containing sensitive information about a US missile defense system was sold on eBay to a university research project that was looking for just such oversights...
Trade secrets: Interim management
Posted on May 07, 2009The downturn means huge challenges and tough decisions for managers and staff, from cost-cutting to redundancies. Bringing in expert interim managers could be the answer. Many senior managers with good track records have never had to manage a business in a recession...
EODT suing former workers :
Posted on May 06, 2009By Bill Brewer Knoxnews.com Lenoir City defense contractor EOD Technology Inc., which provides security services for the U.S. military in Iraq, is suing five former employees for $80 million and accusing them of stealing company secrets to form a competing company...
Swedish National Charged With Hacking and Theft of Trade Secrets Related to Alleged Computer Intrusions at NASA and Cisco
Posted on May 06, 2009Philip Gabriel Pettersson, aka "Stakkato," 21, a Swedish national, was indicted today on intrusion and trade secret theft charges, announced the Justice Department's Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello for the Northern District of California...
Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications Face Off in Trade Secret Trial
Posted on May 04, 2009By: R. Robin McDonald Fulton County Daily Report Trial is culmination of more than four years of litigation. Today in federal court in Atlanta two of the largest defense contractors in the world will go head to head in a trial over the alleged misappropriation of trade secrets associated with the design and construction of an anti-submarine bomber used by navies around the world...
Vt. House working on expanded drug disclosure bill
Posted on May 01, 2009By DAVE GRAM Associated Press Vermont lawmakers want to make it much tougher for drug company sales representatives to court doctors with free lunches and other perks designed to get their products into patients' medicine cabinets. The work came two weeks after Attorney General William Sorrell's office issued its annual report on drug marketing efforts in the state...
RealDVD judge again boots public from courtroom
Posted on April 30, 2009By: Greg Sandoval The film industry once again successfully convinced U.S District Marilyn Patel to boot the public from the courtroom during the RealDVD hearing on Wednesday. Attorneys from the DVD Copy Control Association, the group formed to protect DVDs from piracy, informed Patel that they wanted the courtroom closed during the testimony that would discuss anything the DVD-CCA considered a trade secret...
At MPAA request, judge kicks public out of RealDVD court
Posted on April 29, 2009Posted by Richard Koman In an unusual development, Judge Marilyn Patel kicked out the public from the RealDVD injunction hearing, saying that details of DVD encryption were trade secrets that need to be protected. Real and Cnet objected strenuously, as News...
Sun Successfully Defends Itself Against $100M Patent Suit
Posted on April 28, 2009By: Chris Preimesberger A jury denies the claim for than $100 million in damages from Sun for alleged patent infringement, breach of contract, interference with an existing contract, trade secret misappropriation and unfair competition that had been filed by Versata, formerly called Trilogy Software...
Clorox sues SCJ over new employee
Posted on April 26, 2009By Janine Anderson The Clorox Co. wants a federal judge to keep SC Johnson from employing the man it has hired to be its new senior vice president of global product supply. Timothy Bailey resigned from Clorox in April, and is expected to start work with SCJ the first week of May...
Manchester Democrat Examiner: A trade secret no one wants
Posted on April 25, 2009By: Paul Briand Manchester Democrat Examiner FairPoint Communications has presented a plan to address a long list of customer complaints. But pieces of that plan are being kept from the public because, according to the company, they are trade secrets...
Morrison & Foerster Wins $36 Million in Trade Secrets Trial
Posted on April 23, 2009By: Zusha Elinson The Recorder A San Jose, Calif., jury hit Luna Innovations for $36 million in damages in a trade secret case Tuesday, handing Hansen Medical and its lawyers at Morrison & Foerster the victory. The jury took 1 1/2 days to come to a verdict...
ClearOne Awarded $9.7 Million in Trade Secret Misappropriation Case
Posted on April 22, 2009By Patrick Barnard Senior Web Editor A federal court in Utah has awarded HD conferencing company ClearOne with approximately $9.7 million in damages as part of its trade secret misappropriation case against WideBand (News - Alert) Solutions Inc. and Biamp Systems Corporation...
Activision Sued: Misappropriation of Trade Secrets
Posted on April 20, 2009Activision is embroiled in a legal hassle with Scratch DJ Game LLC, a joint venture between Genius Products and Numark Industries. Activision had tried to acquire Genius and its Scratch: The Ultimate DJ game. Genius didn't want to know. Activision then bought 7 Studios, which was contracted to Genius...
Chinese Espionage Continues with Latest Theft of Trade Secrets
Posted on April 19, 2009By: Jim Kouri (The following is based on a redacted report obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police.) Yan Zhu, also known as "Westerly Zhu", age 31, a Chinese citizen in the U.S. on a work visa, was arrested Friday morning by FBI agents at his residence, 9 Victor Street, Apt 26, Lodi, New Jersey, on charges of theft of trade secrets, conspiracy, wire fraud, and theft of honest services fraud announced Weysan Dun, Special Agent In Charge...
Hospitality giant Starwood sues rival Hilton for 'stealing trade secrets' |
Posted on April 18, 2009By: Andrew Clark The US-based hospitality company Starwood has accused its rival Hilton of a "massive" case of industrial espionage through the alleged theft of more than 100,000 electronic files containing sensitive information about its luxurious W hotel chain...
Berg-Nelson wins trade-secrets lawsuit
Posted on April 17, 2009Torrance. Berg-Nelson Company Inc., a Long Beach maker of rubber and metal hoses, belting and other products, recently won a $242,000 jury verdict in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Torrance, the company's law firm, Cummins & White, said Tuesday...
Aptera motors revs up in Vista
Posted on April 16, 2009By BRADLEY J. FIKES Aptera Motors is a year behind introducing its much-ballyhooed electric and hybrid vehicles. The first model to be made, the all-electric 2e, is scheduled to be available beginning this fall. A hybrid with a gas-powered generator that recharges the batteries will follow...
Environmental Watchdog Group Sues Air District
Posted on April 14, 2009By Riya Bhattacharjee Environmental activists, community organizers and Berkeley citizens have for years pressured the air district to ask Pacific Steel--located at Second and Gilman streets--to control what they say are odors and toxic emissions harmful to human health...
Motley Rice must keep Sherwin-Williams info a secret
Posted on April 13, 2009BY JOHN O'BRIEN Plaintiffs firm Motley Rice make public documents stolen from paint company Sherwin-Williams, an Ohio judge ruled Thursday. Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas Judge John O'Donnell signed a temporary restraining order that forbids Motley Rice from releasing or destroying a 34-page presentation made to Sherwin-Williams' board of directors...
Public records law put to test
Posted on April 12, 2009BY JAMES NASH THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH If a group of Cincinnati teachers prevails in a case now before the Ohio Supreme Court, enterprising students might be able to ace their tests simply by using the state's public-records law to get a copy of the test before it's given...
Los Angeles Lawyers, Firm Sanctioned
Posted on April 10, 2009Evan Hill 04-06-2009 The Recorder A federal magistrate judge in Nevada sanctioned a Los Angeles firm, two of its lawyers and their client last Tuesday for what she called "scorched earth litigation tactics" in a trade secrets case. Magistrate Judge Valerie Cooke of Nevada District Court imposed roughly $20,000 in sanctions on Liner Grode Stein Yankelevitz Sunshine Regenstreif & Taylor...
Faiveley Transport v. Wabtec Corp. (2nd Cir 3/9/09)
Posted on April 10, 2009Faiveley sued Wabtec for misappropriation of trade secrets and related claims. The trial court granted in part and denied in part Faiveley's motion for a preliminary injunction; the 2nd Circuit vacated and remanded. During the 1970s, Faiveley's predecessor developed a unique air brake system designed to stop trains quickly and smoothly...
From academia: "A Sociological Approach to Misappropriation"
Posted on April 10, 2009University of Florida Levin College of Law Research Paper No. 2009-14 ELIZABETH A. ROWE, University of Florida - Fredric G. Levin College of Law Email: rowe@law.ufl.edu This paper is grounded on the premise that sociological analysis can be of great benefit to trade secret law...
Brescia v. Angelin (Cal App 3/17/09)
Posted on April 10, 2009Brescia sued Angelin and others for misappropriation of trade secrets and related claims. The trial court entered judgment of dismissal after sustaining respondents' demurrer to Brescia's third amended cross-complaint; the appellate court reversed. After a dispute at a trade show where Brescia accused Angelin and his company of stealing his ideas, Angelin sued Brescia for trade libel...
Wilson v. Hasbro, Inc. (WD Ky 3/27/09)
Posted on April 10, 2009Wilson (bankruptcy trustee for the estate of Indigo Moon Productions, LLC) sued Hasbro and Atari Interactive, Inc. for misappropriation of trade secrets and related claims. The court granted defendants' summary judgment motion. In 2000, Indigo and Hasbro Interactive, Inc...
Jury Verdict on "Flip This House" case
Posted on April 10, 2009The jury rendered a verdict for the plaintiffs, awarding Davis $4,043,686.71. In early 2004, plaintiff Richard C. Davis and his real estate investment company Trademark Properties Inc. produced a treatment and demo of a reality show about purchasing, renovating and flipping homes...
Chinese man in US accused of trade secret theft
Posted on April 10, 2009By: VICTOR EPSTEIN BUSINESSWEEK A Chinese national living in the United States has been accused of stealing a software program from his former U.S. employer and selling a modified version to the Chinese government after being fired. Yan Zhu, 31, a resident of Lodi, was arrested Thursday for stealing programming-source code needed to modify the encrypted program as well as internal sales materials from the company, the FBI said...
R. Mark Halligan Trade Secret Case Database appraoches 1000 cases!!
Posted on April 09, 2009R. Mark Halligan Partner Nixon Peabody LLP 161 N. Clark Street, 48th Floor Chicago, Ill 60601 reports that his Trade Secrets Case Law Database has now been updated with some 100 new cases - now with 964 trade secret case summaries in the database. Congratulations!!
Garbage companies fight for trash
Posted on April 09, 2009BY WILL BROWN DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER The fight for commercial consumers in North Florida has left Waste Pro of Florida and Emerald Waste in a stinky situation. Two of the biggest garbage collectors in North Florida are in court to settle what Emerald considers a violation of the state's Uniform Trade Secrets Act...
Nagarro Sued In U.S. Federal Court for Software Theft and Unfair Business Practices; Court Orders Sigma Six Technologies, Inc. Case to Proceed
Posted on April 08, 2009Nagarro, Inc., a Silicon Valley outsourced software developer whose back office in Gurgaon, India employs over 400 employees, has been sued in federal court by two U.S.-based companies for theft of trade secrets, breach of confidentiality, unfair business practices and unlawful interference with another company's contract...
United States, Intellectual Property, California´s Uniform Trade Secrets Act Preempts State Common Law Claims
Posted on April 08, 2009By: Patrick E. Premo and Julie Nokleberg The California Court of Appeal for the Sixth Appellate District recently issued an important decision confirming the preemptive effect of California's Uniform Trade Secrets Act ("CUTSA") on common law claims...
Lean, mean and hungry: trade secrets of a tycoon
Posted on April 06, 2009By: Marcus Padley I ONCE went out with the richest man in England. Not in the biblical sense of course, and after a few bottles of something expensive he expounded his somewhat brutal assessment of life and business. I took notes. Here is the potted version...
Hank Asher sued by former company
Posted on April 05, 2009By: Bill Frogameni South Florida Business Journal Reed Elsevier, the Massachusetts-based parent of LexisNexis and Seisint, on Thursday filed a complaint in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, alleging that Asher is violating his non-compete agreement by starting a new company, TLFO, in Boca Raton...
Proposed new local rules for handling patent cases in the Northern District of Illinois
Posted on April 04, 2009By: Arthur Gollwitzer III On March 23, 2009, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ("The Court") issued proposed local rules for handling patent cases, continuing a trend that began in the Northern District of California in 2001...
Household Products Start to Come Clean on Ingredients
Posted on April 03, 2009By ANJALI ATHAVALEY A few manufacturers of household cleaning products have begun disclosing the chemicals in some of their products. S.C. Johnson & Son Inc. last month rolled out Web site WhatsInsideSCJohnson.com to describe most of the ingredients for its Windex, Glade, and Shout brands...
The Potency Of The Investigative Power Of Congress
Posted on April 01, 2009The Editor interviews John F. Sopko , Partner in Akin Gump's Washington, DC, office, who has 20 years of experience in conducting congressional investigations in both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Editor: Can trade secrets be protected? What about the attorney-client privilege? Sopko: The courts have ruled that Congress does not have to recognize these privileges, but they can be protected, particularly if you know how to negotiate with the committee members and their staff...
Judge fines business in trade secret dispute
Posted on April 01, 2009By: Stephen Gurr Saying he believed a Gainesville tax preparation company willfully misappropriated trade secrets of H&R Block and ignored a court order not to use them, a judge fined Paramount Tax Services more than $12,000 Tuesday for contempt of court...
NBA All-Star, Shaquille O'Neal, Endorses Enlyten, LLC's Bi-Layered Nutraceutical Strip Products Manufactured by HealthSport, Inc.
Posted on March 31, 2009By: Mike Sclafani HealthSport, Inc. HealthSport, Inc. (OTCBB:HSPO) announced today that Shaquille O'Neal, perennial NBA All-Star and named one of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players of All Time, has reached an agreement with Enlyten, LLC, becoming its leading -- and most celebrated -- spokesman endorsing Enlyten's bi-layered nutraceutical film strips...
Arlington Heights man accused of stealing trade secrets
Posted on March 29, 2009By Kristen Kridel | Tribune reporter An Arlington Heights man was charged Friday with the theft of trade secrets from the Wheeling company where he worked, authorities said. David Yen Lee, 52, of the 400 block of West Rand Road, was arrested at his home Thursday and ordered held without bail Friday in federal court in Chicago, the FBI said...
Ill. chemist charged with stealing trade secrets
Posted on March 27, 2009Associated Press A suburban Chicago chemist is charged with stealing trade secrets from a Minneapolis-based paint manufacturer where he worked and planning to take them to a job with a foreign rival. David Yen Lee of Arlington Heights was arrested Thursday after FBI agents found trade secrets on a thumb drive in his luggage as he prepared to catch a flight to Shanghai...
Clinton's State Department ducks extraterrestrial/UFO disclosure
Posted on March 26, 2009By: Alfred Webre Thus far, the U.S. appears to be a lone holdout among major UFO/ET-knowledgeable nations on any updated release of its secret files related to unidentified flying objects (UFOs) and extraterrestrial life. Many reasons have been postulated for this refusal by United States military intelligence to release its secret UFO and extraterrestrial-related files...
9/11 Families Urge Judge to Release Aviation Security Evidence on Terrorist Attacks
Posted on March 26, 2009PRNewswire Calling for truth, rather than secrecy, to be the legacy of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, attorneys for a group of 9/11 family members are presenting oral arguments today urging U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein to release more than one hundred deposition transcripts and over a million pages of evidence relating to the aviation security failures resulting in the worst terrorist attack in American history...
Granite claims former employee was leaking trade secrets for several years
Posted on March 24, 2009By: Jon Chesto The Patriot Ledger Telecom alleges employee leaks cost it hundreds of thousands of dollars. A fast-growing Quincy telecom firm has sued one of its former employees, alleging that the sales representative leaked confidential client data costing the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue...
Stallone Maintains Proof in the Pudding
Posted on March 23, 2009By: BILL HETHERMAN A judge's removal of Sylvester Stallone and another man from a lawsuit alleging they misappropriated trade secrets in marketing a unique pudding for bodybuilders was a recipe for reversal, an appellate panel has ruled. The three-justice panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal unanimously agreed that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William F...
Chinese high-tech spy case inches closer to trial
Posted on March 22, 2009By Ellen Messmer Software engineer Hanjuan Jin is accused of stealing thousands of confidential documents from Motorola Did software engineer Hanjuan Jin, who worked at Motorola for about eight years, steal thousands of confidential and proprietary technical documents to share with competitor Lemko and the People's Republic of China? Jin, in her late 30s, says she didn't...
Psystar makes small update to Mac clone, Apple fumes
Posted on March 21, 2009By Jeff Smykil Psystar has updated its line of Mac clones, completely disregarding the pending lawsuit by Apple for violations of the Mac OS X EULA. Still, the new addition offers more power for the same price as a Mac mini. The introduction of the updated model certainly sends a message to Apple--one that would cause our mouths to be washed out with soap if we repeated...
Man charged in theft of trade secrets from Livonia company
Posted on March 20, 2009A former Brighton man was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges of wire fraud, theft of trade secrets from a Livonia company and false statements. Thomas McKinney, 38, of Spring, Texas, was arrested near Houston by federal agents, said U...
Governor signs open records law
Posted on March 20, 2009By CHET BROKAW Associated Press Gov. Mike Rounds announced Thursday he has signed into law a measure that presumes government documents in South Dakota are public unless there's a good reason to keep them secret. The new law starts with a presumption that records are open to public inspection...
FDA moves to plug trade secret leaks
Posted on March 20, 2009UPI.com U.S. Food and Drug Administration Deputy Commissioner Frank Torti is warning employees against leaking companies' trade secrets, a memo indicates. Torti's memo, which was obtained by the In Vivo blog, outlined prohibitions against leaking commercial information that "can result in disciplinary sanctions and/or individual criminal liability," The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday...
State's higher taxes on 'alcopops' are fizzling out
Posted on March 16, 2009By: Evan Halper Under a new state law, beverages such as Smirnoff Ice are supposed to be taxed as liquor. But manufacturers say they've changed their recipes to continue fitting into the lower-taxed beer category. Beverage makers admit they aren't paying the new taxes...
Israel's government abuses Free Trade Agreement with US
Posted on March 16, 2009By Ray Hanania The US has FTAs with 20 foreign nations, including six added in 2006, Bahrain, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Morocco, and Nicaragua. Israel lobbied for a bilateral Free Trade Agreement with the US in 1984 and it was approved in 1985...
EI honors innovative employees
Posted on March 15, 2009BY MY-LY NGUYEN Pressconnects Endicott Interconnect Technologies announced this week that it celebrated its advancements in technological innovation with an awards ceremony Feb. 20 at The McKinley in Endicott. EI honored 43 employees for patent applications filed, U...
Two Engineers Arraigned For Theft Of Trade Secrets From Goodyear
Posted on March 15, 2009By Tim Wilson Two Wyko Tire Technology engineers are facing up to 150 years in prison after allegedly scamming their way into a Goodyear tire factory and secretly photographing its proprietary equipment. According to a UPI report, in early 2007 Wyko secured a contract to supply the Haohau South China Guilin Rubber Co...
Merrill's Bonuses and the Ice Cream Defense
Posted on March 15, 2009By: Cyrus Sanati and Peter Edmonston Just how much of a secret are Merrill Lynch's bonus numbers? In 1979, the New York State Supreme Court ruled that Carvel did not need to turn its secret formula over to the New York State attorney general's office, which was investigating restraint-of-trade allegations at Carvel...
Company awarded $17.5 million.
Posted on March 12, 2009By: Jan Biles A Manhattan electronics design and manufacturing company has been awarded nearly $17.5 million in actual and punitive damages in a lawsuit alleging breach of contract, fraud, fraudulent concealment and misappropriation of trade secrets after a deal with a French company to make a propeller deicing system dissolved...
Atrua Adds Trade Secret Theft by Authentec to Lawsuit
Posted on March 12, 2009By: Marc Ostrowski Authentec Theft Disclosed in Lawsuit's Legal Discovery Process. Atrua Technologies announced today that it has asked the United States District Court to issue an injunction against Authentec, Inc. (NASDAQ: AUTH) due to their misappropriation of Atrua's trade secrets from facilities of prospective customers on multiple occasions...
GT US Department of Justice: Two Indicted for Conspiring to Steal Trade Secrets from Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company
Posted on March 09, 2009Trading Markets An indictment was unsealed today charging Clark Alan Roberts, 46, and Sean Edward Howley, 38, both engineers with Wyko Tire Technology Inc., located in Greenback, Tenn., with conspiring to steal trade secrets from the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company and scheming to defraud Goodyear of confidential and proprietary information, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division Rita M...
Zrii Sues Lifevantage Corporation
Posted on March 08, 2009Zrii, LLC announced today that on February 27, 2009, Zrii, LLC filed a lawsuit against Lifevantage Corporation (a publicly traded company headquartered in San Diego, CA) for allegedly inducing and conspiring with the former Zrii executive management team and some of its leading Independent Executives to breach their contracts with Zrii, to join Lifevantage as its employees or distributors, and to utilize trade secrets of Zrii for the benefit of Lifevantage...
East Tennessee engineers accused of stealing trade secrets
Posted on March 07, 2009The Associated Press Two Tennessee engineers have been charged with stealing trade secrets from Goodyear Tire Co. to help design manufacturing equipment for a Chinese tire company. Clark Alan Roberts and Sean Edward Howley pleaded not guilty Friday before a federal magistrate in Knoxville to an unsealed 12-count indictment charging trade secret theft, wire fraud and conspiracy...
Protecting Your Organization's Innovations
Posted on February 26, 2009By Ryan Averbeck and Gregory A. Gaddy Global economic competition, to a large extent, has replaced the Cold War political and military competition. As a result, countries now pursue national economic interests through a myriad of activities, including espionage...
Documents Reveal AIPAC Trade Secrets Leak Leading to $71 Billion Export Loss
Posted on February 25, 2009By: Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy Newly released Freedom of Information Act documents reveal details of trade secrets leaked during negotiations of America's first trade agreement. In 1983 the Israeli Prime Minister and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobbied the Reagan administration for preferential access to the US market...
Biz Buzz: Some departing workers take trade secrets with them
Posted on February 25, 2009By: Venuri Siriwardane Sensitive corporate data are walking right out the door with disgruntled former employees. More than half of workers who lost or left a job in 2008 said they stole confidential company data, according to a recent survey by Symantec, a data security firm, and the Poneman Institute, which polled nearly 1,000 adults who lost their job last year...
Finnish Law Backed by Nokia May Deter Whistleblowers
Posted on February 25, 2009By Juho Erkheikki The Finnish government may silence corporate whistleblowers after supporting legislation backed by Nokia Oyj to ease regulations on monitoring workers' emails, opponents say. "It's a step toward more and more surveillance of private citizens," said Tapani Tarvainen, chairman of Electronic Frontier Finland, an advocacy group...
Lesson Learned
Posted on February 23, 2009By THOMAS G. DONLAN GENERAL MOTORS HAS LEARNED FROM ITS MISTAKES There are those who say that the country cannot afford to let GM, Chrysler and Ford go bankrupt. They think the car companies and their suppliers are the core of American industry, which must be saved...
NovaBay Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NBY) Receives Broadcast And Print Media Coverage
Posted on February 23, 2009NovaBay Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing products for the treatment or prevention of a wide range of bacterial and viral infections, has recently been featured in a segment on San Francisco Bay area's KTVU-TV Channel 2 news and in an article in Genetic Engineering News...
Panel passes plan for open records
Posted on February 21, 2009By: JONATHAN ELLIS A bill that would open many government records to the public cleared its first hurdle Friday by passing in a Senate committee. Senate Bill 147 creates a presumption that government records are public. South Dakota is one of the only states in the nation without such a law...
Skyward Mobile files for bankruptcy
Posted on February 19, 2009By: Jesse Noyes Skyward Mobile Inc., which was run by a team with top technology pedigrees, sought Chapter 7 protection in Boston. The company had 20 employees as of 16 months ago and built applications ranging from crossword puzzles to mobile Bibles for use on cell phones...
State Trade Secret Claims Not Preempted by Federal Patent Law
Posted on February 17, 2009By David A. Kays Rejecting the argument that state trade secret and breach of contract claims were pre-empted by federal patent law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld the district court's jury verdict for the plaintiff and $20 million award of damages for unjust enrichment and breach of contract...
Aggressive IP Strategy Fails -- Again
Posted on February 16, 2009By: Zusha Elinson Eyebrows were raised by Silvaco Data Systems Inc.'s aggressive move when it sued the customers of a software maker, Circuit Semantics Inc., that it had beaten in a trade secrets case. Last week, one of those customers, Cypress Semiconductor Corp...
ETWCU Etrials adds rival Unithink to lawsuit: Suit claims theft of trade secret
Posted on February 14, 2009By: McClatch The News & Observer Etrials Worldwide, a Morrisville company that has had a tumultuous past two years, is battling a local rival in Wake County court. The lawsuit against Unithink, a Belgian company that in October set up U.S. operations about 5 miles from etrials, alleges that Unithink lured away key etrials employees and illegally obtained trade secrets to damage etrials' business...
Theft of trade secrets nets prison terms
Posted on February 13, 2009BY DAVID ASHENFELTER FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER A former vice president of Metaldyne Corp. and two former senior employees were sentenced in Detroit today to prison terms after pleading guilty to charges involving theft of trade secrets to sell to Chinese competitors...
KFC's Secret Recipe Returns Home
Posted on February 12, 2009By Jim Bulleit WLKY.com The secret recipe of Kentucky Fried Chicken is back in Louisville. The recipe was moved last September to an undisclosed location while KFC's internal security was revamped. "This recipe has amazing global importance and the reason is that you could maybe put on your hand the number of world, global trade secrets that are housed in a single packet, in a single form," said KFC President Roger Eaton...
CA and Rocket Software reach settlement
Posted on February 11, 2009By Robert Weisman Software provider CA Inc. this morning said it has reached a settlement with Rocket Software of Newton, a competitor in the database administration software business, in connection with a 2007 lawsuit lodged by CA charging Rocket with copyright infringement...
TEKsystems Awarded $450,000 for Misappropriation of Trade Secrets
Posted on February 10, 2009PRWEB In the TEKsystems vs. Modis lawsuit, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has awarded TEKsystems $450,000 for misappropriation of trade secrets by Modis, Inc. The Court concluded that Modis used information found in TEKsystems' proprietary database with knowledge that it came from TEKsystems, that the information constituted trade secrets, and that Modis refused to return the trade secret information or to delete it from its systems...
Kolon Plays Innocent on DuPont Charges
Posted on February 09, 2009By Jane Han Staff Reporter Kolon Industries fended off Wednesday a trade secret lawsuit filed by leading American chemical firm DuPont, claiming that its business has not breached any law to step into the lucrative para-aramid fiber market. DuPont filed a suit with a U...
Trial focuses on trade secrets
Posted on February 08, 2009The Capital-Journal A trial is set to begin Tuesday for a lawsuit filed by a Manhattan electronics design and manufacturing company alleging fraud, fraudulent concealment, breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets by a French company after a deal to make a propeller deicing system dissolved...
International Rectifier Loses Case
Posted on February 07, 2009By ALEXA HYLAND International Rectifier Corp. lost its battle with ousted chief executive Alexander Lidow when a Los Angeles federal judge dismissed its lawsuit over alleged theft of trade secrets. The El Segundo maker of power management chips filed the suit in September, alleging that Lidow engaged in an ongoing criminal enterprise -- also known as a racketeer influenced and corrupt organization, or Rico -- by stealing information and intellectual property related to the company's $60 million secret research...
Keys marine worker accused of stealing trade secrets
Posted on February 06, 2009By: Doug Phillips An employee of a marine services company on Plantation Key is accused of stealing trade secrets from her workplace and giving them to her boyfriend, a potential competitor of the business. According to the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, Gwendolyn Russell, 45, was diverting price estimates and other quotes from Atlantic Davits & Boatlifts of the Keys so her boyfriend could submit lower quotes for the work in order to win potential customers...
New York Court Upholds Insurance Department's Decision That Trade Secrets Are Exempt From Foil Disclosure
Posted on February 05, 2009By: Francine L. Semaya , William K. Broudy and Laurance D. Shapiro On January 13, 2009, the New York Supreme Court, the trial level court in New York, denied a challenge to the New York Insurance Department's (the "Department") determination that certain transactional information filed with the Department by a bond insurer as a trade secret was exempt from public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Law ("FOIL")...
DuPont accuses Kolon of stealing trade secrets
Posted on February 04, 2009WASHINGTON (AFP) Leading US chemical company DuPont on Tuesday filed a lawsuit accusing South Korean competitor Kolon Industries of stealing trade secrets. DuPont said a civil suit was filed in a US federal court against Kolon "for theft of trade secrets and confidential information" over the American firm's Kevlar fiber product used in body armor worn by police officers and soldiers...
Court of Appeals of North Carolina issues MEDICAL STAFFING NETWORK, INC. ruling
Posted on February 02, 2009A staffing company brought action against competitor and former employee, who began working for competitor, for breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair and deceptive trade practices, and tortious interference with a contract. Following a bench trial, the Superior Court, Wake County, James C...
United States District Court, M.D. Florida, Orlando Division decision in KNIGHTS ARMAMENT COMPANY case
Posted on February 02, 2009A manufacturer of night vision devices for use on military rifles brought suit against competitor asserting causes of action for trademark infringement and unfair competition under the Lanham Act and common-law unfair competition. Competitor asserted counterclaims for the same causes of action, and for misappropriation of trade secrets and business disparagement...
COVAD COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY v. REVONET, INC.
Posted on February 02, 2009A communications company, providing integrated voice and data communications, including digital subscriber line (DSL) services, as alternative to local phone companies, filed suit against customer lead generation services provider, claiming breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing, breach of fiduciary duty, and conversion by taking proprietary customer lead information for voice over internet protocol (VoIP) marketing campaign and integrating such information into provider's federated database and sharing it with competitors...
Pfizer Breached Trade Secrets in Using Databases: Research Firm
Posted on February 02, 2009Verdict-Plaintiff: the jury found that the IREF owned the EPI-1, EPI-2, and Acadesine databases in 2002 and 2003; that the databases were trade secrets in 2002 and 2003; that in February 2002, Hsu and Pfizer misappropriated the database trade secrets; and that their misappropriations were willful and malicious...
Pre-packs: trade secrets
Posted on February 02, 2009By: Mike Jervis A number of recent, high profile cases have cast a critical light on a process used by most insolvency firms the 'pre-pack'. In short, this is where a deal to sell the assets of a failing company is agreed prior to insolvency and completed immediately after the appointment of administrators or receivers...
League's 'fluidity' leaves no room for trade secrets
Posted on February 01, 2009By: Cam Cole Canwest News Service There have been 30 head coaching vacancies in the National Football League since 2006, a surprising number of them filled by relative unknowns from other staffs -- including the two whose teams face off in Sunday's Super Bowl...
Microsoft suit alleges ex-worker stole trade secrets
Posted on February 01, 2009By: Elinor Mills Microsoft has sued a former employee for allegedly lying when he applied for a job there and stealing trade secrets that were later used in a lawsuit against Microsoft partners. According to the lawsuit, filed January 22 in King County Superior Court, Miki Mullor stated on his application that he no longer worked at Ancora Technologies because it had gone out of business...
Oklahoma State Senator Files Business Data Protection Bill
Posted on January 31, 2009Source: Oklahoma State Senate Oklahoma State Sen. Dan Newberry has filed legislation to strengthen the state's laws on business data protection. SB 1013 adds copying customer lists and business records without authorization to the state's criminal statutes concerning larceny of trade secrets...
5 face charges in new indictment
Posted on January 30, 2009By: Jimmie E. Gates Five former Eaton Aerospace engineers now are facing charges of possession of trade secrets under a new federal indictment. The trial of Rodney Case, Kevin Clark, Mike Fulton, Douglas Murphy and James Ward had been set this month for April 13 on a conspiracy-to-defraud charge, but it's uncertain whether the new indictment will affect the date...
How to Guard Your Trade Secrets (and Why You Must)
Posted on January 29, 2009By: Mark Grossman In the connected world that is 2009, almost every company has a trade secret that it wants to keep. Between BlackBerrys, home e-mail accounts, and USB ports that can write gigs of data to a flash drive, it's only getting harder to protect your trade secrets...
United States, Labour and Employment, Top 5 Potential Hazards With Economy-Driven Decisions
Posted on January 27, 2009By: Michael C. Schmidt Tough times require businesses to strengthen their resolve to avoid the legal tsunami that can also result from the economy-driven decisions that are made. This article sets forth best practices for ensuring that your company minimizes its potential exposure in 5 primary areas...
IBM Clears Papermaster to Work at Apple
Posted on January 27, 2009By: Chloe Albanesius A legal dispute between Apple and IBM over a former IBM employee hired to serve as Apple's new senior vice president of devices hardware engineering has been resolved, Apple announced Tuesday. Mark Papermaster will start work on April 24, reporting to chief executive Steve Jobs, who is currently on a six-month health-related hiatus...
Alabama judge upholds $192M verdict in property suit
Posted on January 26, 2009By: GARRY MITCHELL Associated Press Global chemical giant Ineos Phenol, stung by a $192 million jury verdict, has denied stealing a hazardous waste recycling idea from a Mobile chemist and said it would appeal a judge's order upholding the award. Like most states, Alabama has a Trade Secrets Act that sets out civil remedies for the misappropriation of trade secrets...
How Juror Misconceptions Affect Patent Trials
Posted on January 25, 2009By: Joe Mullin IP Law & Business Lawyers know that copying doesn't need to be present to prove patent infringement. Independent invention is not a defense to an allegation of infringement, and patent law stands alone, legally speaking, in that it actually punishes independent development...
International Rectifier sues former CEO for theft of trade secrets
Posted on January 24, 2009A hearing is expected by early February regarding a federal lawsuit in the California Central District Court filed on 8 September by power-management chip maker International Rectifier Corp (IR) of El Segundo, CA, USA against former CEO Alexander Lidow (son of Eric Lidow, who founded IR in 1947 and was chairman until last May)...
SkinMedica Files Patent and Trade Secret Action Against Histogen
Posted on January 23, 2009BUSINESSWIRE The complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, seeks relief against the defendants for infringing SkinMedica's U.S. Patents No. 6,372,494 and/or 7,118,746. The ?494 and ?746 patents, which were filed in 1999 and 2000, respectively, relate to methods and uses of SkinMedica's proprietary conditioned cell media technology...
Avoiding Danger to Business Secrets in a Bad Economy
Posted on January 22, 2009By: David Walton Bad economic times create opportunities for strong companies to poach good employees from a weakened competitor -- a signal for employers to aggressively protect trade secrets. In fact, employees in sour economic conditions are apt to switch companies to head off potential job loss...
Obama Administration Outlines Cyber Security Strategy - Security Fix
Posted on January 22, 2009By: Brian Krebs President Barack Obama's administration has sketched out a broad new strategy to protect the nation's most vital information networks from cyber attack and to boost investment and research on cyber security. Among the key points are to set up a high-level post to tackle cyber security, consider new regulations to combat cyber crime and shore up the security of the nation's most sensitive computer networks...
Will Carl Levin Release The TARP Contracts?
Posted on January 20, 2009By: Michael Maiello In an exchange with the Web site TPMMuckraker, Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) told journalists Zachary Roth and Elana Schor that "my instinct would be to release," copies of contracts that companies signed in order to receive federal money under the Trouble Asset Relief Program...
Local grocer New Seasons responds to Whole Foods subpoena
Posted on January 19, 2009The Associated Press After months of battling to keep its trade secrets under wraps, New Seasons Market had agreed to hand over some operational information to rival grocer Whole Foods Market. Whole Foods operates more than 270 stores. It is seeking the information to defend itself against Federal Trade Commission claims that its purchase of Wild Oats Markets created a natural foods monopoly...
Chip Company Suing Ex-CEO
Posted on January 18, 2009By ALEXA HYLAND International Rectifier Corp. has dodged a hostile takeover and weathered an accounting scandal. Now the El Segundo maker of power management chips is going to court with its former chief executive - the son of the company's founder - accusing him of stealing trade secrets...
Is breathalyzer source code fair game?
Posted on January 17, 2009By: Doug Aamoth Kentucky-based CMI has come under fire on more than one occasion for not turning over the source code used in the breathalyzers that it sells to various law enforcement agencies, citing trade secrets as the reason for keeping the code under wraps...
In the courts - District, county court Jan. 16
Posted on January 16, 2009Pammy J. Schiel, 47, of Fort Morgan has been sentenced in Morgan County District Court after pleading guilty to theft of trade secrets and felony theft for taking trade secrets and unauthorized checks from Morgan Surety Title Co. and later Northern Colorado Title...
Whole Foods asks competitors for help in fight with FTC
Posted on January 15, 2009Whole Foods Market Inc. CEO John Mackey has sent a letter to 93 of the grocery chain's competitors across the country, asking them to provide pricing and other information that Whole Foods says it needs to fight multiple lawsuits filed by the Federal Trade Commission...
Banks' Intellectual Property at Great Risk Amid Layoffs
Posted on January 14, 2009By Maria Bruno-Britz Trade secrets and intellectual property are perhaps two of the areas most overlooked at banks. However, now that the industry is facing unprecedented change, financial institutions would be wise to turn their attention toward protecting such proprietary information -- especially as it relates to erstwhile employees, says attorney Bradford Newman, chair of the Silicon Valley Employment Law Department and leader of the International Employee Mobility and Trade Secrets practice with the law firm Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker LLP (New York)...
Whole Foods asks competitors for help in fight with FTC
Posted on January 13, 2009Lanny Davis, an outside attorney representing Whole Foods, said in order for the company to defend itself against the lawsuits, it needs to obtain sensitive information from its competitors in each of the jurisdictions. Whole Foods needs to prove that it is competing against other grocers for customers in each of those areas...
Intel accused of stealing chip virtualization, violating God's law
Posted on January 12, 2009By Cade Metz An American prison inmate has sued Intel for $5 billion, insisting the chip maker's Core 2 Duo chip and its virtualization technology are based on trade secrets pilfered from him by way of Apple supremo Steve Jobs. In court papers (PDF) recently filed with an Oregon-based US District Court, 43-year-old Matthew Robert Young claims that he shared these trade secrets with His Steveness in 2003 and that Jobs quickly spilled the beans to the world's largest chip maker...
Bombay Dyeing slaps Rs 501-cr suit against former employee
Posted on January 11, 2009By: Swati Deshpande On Wednesday, Darius Khambata, counsel for Bombay Dyeing, informed the high court that there was evidence in the form of an e-mail sent out by Singh, which was recovered from his laptop that showed he had sent out confidential trade information about a software to a competitor, in violation of his service contract...
Comptroller's Web site posted Caithness' $1.49B cost
Posted on January 09, 2009By MARK HARRINGTON While an attorney in his office last month sided with LIPA and Caithness in their refusal to disclose costs tied to a new Yaphank power plant, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli had already let the cat out of the bag. That's because a public Web site called OpenBookNewYork...
Google cuts temporary workers but murky on details
Posted on January 08, 2009By MICHAEL LIEDTKE SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Google Inc. has jettisoned a substantial number of temporary workers in a recent austerity drive spurred by the recession, although the Internet search leader still intends to spend billions of dollars during the next two years on product research, development and acquisitions...
Long Beach puts airport privatization on agenda
Posted on January 07, 2009By Dan Weikel and Louis Sahagun In a closed meeting scheduled for today, the Long Beach City Council is set to discuss whether to lease some, if not all, of the city's small commercial airport to private investors, a move that could generate millions of dollars in municipal revenue...
The Staggering Cost of New Nuclear Power
Posted on January 06, 2009By Joseph Romm A new study puts the generation costs for power from new nuclear plants at 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour--triple current U.S. electricity rates! In contrast to this transparency, many nuclear promoters have adopted a "Black Box" approach...
Fed Refuses to Trade Secrets
Posted on January 06, 2009By The Mogambo Guru Jim Willie of the Hat Trick Letter notes that Bloomberg has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Reserve to force the Fed to give some details about where in the hell $700 billion went after disbursement from the TARP funds, a request and a lawsuit that the Fed is steadfastly fighting, tooth and nail...
Turkey continues nuclear steps with peaceful use guarantee
Posted on January 04, 2009By ERCAN YAVUZ ANKARA Turkey has taken another step toward full utilization of nuclear energy by drafting a bill on nuclear energy that guarantees the nation will use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. The bill foresees the establishment of a Turkish Nuclear Regulatory Board (TNDK) as an independent body free from the influence of the state, politicians and individuals...
BUMPS ALONG THE SILK ROAD: PROTECTING TRADE SECRETS FROM EUROPE TO INDIA TO CHINA
Posted on January 04, 2009Metropolitan Corporate Counsel Volume 16, Number 12 - December 2008 James P. Flynn Epstein Becker & Green, P.C. [T]rade on the Silk Road ...included...oasis merchants who served as intermediaries in this down-the-line trade, as it is called, [and who] were careful to discourage longer-distance trade by exaggerating the distances and dangers involved, and they suppressed detailed accounts of distant lands, treating such information as trade secrets...
B & H SECURITIES, INC., a New Jersey Corporation, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Duane D. PINKNEY, Marc J. Palladino, Michael Poisler and Advanced Integration Security
Posted on January 04, 2009Background: Employee filed claim against former employer with the Department of Labor for unpaid wages under the Wage Act. Employer removed the claim to Superior Court for a jury trial, and moved to consolidate the action with its own pending action against employee for alleged misappropriation of trade secrets, among other claims...
ACCENTURE GLOBAL SERVICES GMBH and Accenture LLP, Plaintiffs, v. GUIDEWIRE SOFTWARE INC., Defendant
Posted on January 04, 2009Patentees brought action against competitor, alleging infringement of patent which described a computer program for developing component-based software capable of performing tasks relating to insurance transactions, such as claims processing, and also claims for trade secret misappropriation, unfair competition and deceptive trade practices in violation of the Delaware Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA), common law unfair competition, and tortious interference with business relations...
Budget talk to dominate legislative session '09
Posted on January 03, 2009By Louis Porter and Daniel Barlow Vermont Press Bureau Doctor-industry transparency Lawmakers and advocates will push this year for greater transparency between doctors and health professionals in Vermont and the medical industry, including the companies that make the medications doctors prescribe...
Intellectual property rights regarding export
Posted on January 02, 2009By Khizar Alam Khan Pakistan Observer Newspaper online edition Pakistan provides a wide range of protection for intellectual property through the federal registration of trademarks and service marks through federal patent protection and copyright protection under state laws, through protection of trade secrets and marks...
EPA leaves public in the dark about thousands of dangerous chemicals
Posted on December 30, 2008Sun Editorial In its mission to protect human health and the environment, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is supposed to act as a clearinghouse for information about hazardous chemicals. However, an analysis by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found that the EPA is making it difficult for people to find information about chemicals and is allowing companies to keep compounds, including those shown to cause cancer and respiratory problems, secret...
Lessons From the Madoff Scandal
Posted on December 30, 2008By James B. Stewart (Author Archive) Now that some of the dust is settling around the Bernard Madoff scandal -- he allegedly admitted to bilking his investors out of at least $50 billion -- there has been a growing tendency in some quarters to blame the victims, at least in part...
Pfizer to pay $38M or more in Calif. trade-secrets decision
Posted on December 28, 2008By Lee Howard Pfizer Inc. has been ordered to pay at least $38 million - and may owe more than $100 million - to settle a California trade-secrets lawsuit, The San Jose Mercury News has reported. The verdict, after a six-week trial, found that Pfizer had conspired to steal trade secrets from the nonprofit Ischemia Research and Education Foundation of San Bruno, Calif...
Local glass designer bending light
Posted on December 27, 2008By Dick Russ John Blazy and his incredible works of art are making their way from his Parma workshop to all parts of the country. John, the founder and owner of John Blazy Designs, has invented and perfected the manufacture of what he calls "Dichrolam...
Lawmakers seek transparency in doctor-drug industry relationships
Posted on December 26, 2008By Daniel Barlow Times Argus Online MONTPELIER - Some lawmakers are envisioning a future where Vermonters can type in a doctor's name into an on-line database and see exactly how much - if any - money they receive from the pharmaceutical industry. For several years now, the Vermont Attorney General's Office has issued a report detailing the amount of money those in the medical field receive from the pharmaceutical industry...
ND Ill - Party could not assert a trademark right in idea for name.
Posted on December 26, 2008Welsh v. Big Ten Conference, Inc. (11/21/08) The court granted in part and denied in part Big's motion to dismiss Welsh's amended complaint and request for attorney fees. Welsh's theory was that he owned the rights to certain trade secrets (namely the "Big Ten Network" and the business ideas it encompassed as described in Welsh's business plan) and that Big obtained its registration for the "Big Ten Network" mark by not telling the PTO that Welsh had rights in those trade secrets...
This case requires us to construe an exclusion barring coverage for "any claim arising out of any misappropriation of trade secret" in a professional liability policy
Posted on December 26, 2008This case requires us to construe an exclusion barring coverage for "any claim arising out of any misappropriation of trade secret" in a professional liability policy issued by the defendant, National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (National Union), to the plaintiff, Uniscribe Professional Services, Inc...
Privilege-Wise and Patent (and Trade Secret)-Foolish?: How the Courts' Misapplication of the Military and State Secrets Privilege Violates the Constitution and Endangers National Security
Posted on December 26, 2008Davida H. Isaacs Northern Kentucky University - Salmon P. Chase College of Law Robert Michael Farley Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Forthcoming Abstract: It is every inventor's nightmare: a valuable idea, stolen, with no legal recourse...
IDENTIFYING AND KEEPING THE GENIE IN THE BOTTLE: THE PRACTICAL AND LEGAL REALITIES OF TRADE SECRETS IN BANKRUPTCY PROCEEDINGS
Posted on December 25, 200844 Gonz. L. Rev. 81 (2008) Sharon K. Sandeen Anyone who has paid attention to developments in the world of business over the past quarter century knows that intellectual property ("IP") is a hot commodity. Indeed, in contrast to companies that emerged from the Industrial Revolution, many of the companies spawned during the Information Age attribute much of their value and prospects to intangible, rather than tangible, assets...
The Sidney B. Williams, Jr. Intellectual Property Law Scholarships
Posted on December 25, 2008The Foundation is awarding $10,000 Scholarships for Minority Scholars as well as arranging internships and mentorships to assist under-represented minority law school students entering intellectual property law. Because of the central role intellectual property (patents, trademarks, trade secrets and copyrights) will have on the future of our country and the world, it is critical that the legal profession serving this strategic area strive mightily to reflect the rich diversity of our great nation...
Pfizer to pay $38M or more in Calif. trade-secrets decision
Posted on December 25, 2008By Lee Howard The verdict, after a six-week trial, found that Pfizer had conspired to steal trade secrets from the nonprofit Ischemia Research and Education Foundation of San Bruno, Calif., in an effort to develop the painkiller Bextra. The lawsuit alleged that Pfizer stole a database on cardiovascular risks associated with drugs like Bextra...
Santa Clara County jury orders Pfizer to pay $38 million in stolen trade secrets case
Posted on December 23, 2008By Howard Mintz A Santa Clara County jury on Monday ordered Pfizer to pay $38 million to a leading San Bruno medical research firm for stealing trade secrets to develop a pain relief drug that eventually was taken off the market. Concluding a six-week trial, the Superior Court jury also found that Pfizer and a former employee of the research firm could be liable for punitive damages, which could triple the judgment and catapult the verdict beyond $100 million...
Grocer Loses Bid To Keep Trade Secrets Away From Whole Foods
Posted on December 22, 2008By Brent Kendal The FTC is seeking to undo Whole Foods' 2007 acquisition of rival Wild Oats Markets Inc., arguing that the merger would lessen competition in the market for natural and organic foods. The commission is holding an administrative trial in February on the legality of the merger...
GROUND ZERO ON WALL STREET: FED FUNDS AND T-BILLS HIT 0% INTEREST
Posted on December 20, 2008By Ellen-Brown In the last two weeks, two federal interest rates hit all-time record lows. On December 16, the market was taken by surprise when Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke lowered the federal funds rate (the interest banks pay to borrow the reserves they need to meet their reserve requirement) to zero...
Computers making guarding precious information a challenge
Posted on December 19, 2008By Max Marbut Computers have changed global business by allowing more data to be processed and stored in more places and accessed by more people than in any time in history. In some ways, the technology has created new commercial advantages. In other ways, it has created consequences, depending on the nature of the data, who has access to it and what they are able to do with that data...
Intellectual Property Issues in Asset-Based Lending
Posted on December 18, 2008By Richard Raysman and Peter Brown New York Journal According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, U.S. intellectual property is worth more than $5 trillion. Intellectual property is considered a "general intangible" within the meaning of UCC §9-106...
Anastasia Beverly Hills Wins Eyebrow-Raising Multimillion Dollar Verdict in Salon Trade Secret Suit
Posted on December 17, 2008By Anastasia Beverly Hills Marking a significant win for small, independently owned companies, especially those whose protected trade secrets are illegally exported abroad, Anastasia Beverly Hills has won a multimillion dollar trade secret judgment against Japanese company LuyVie, Inc...
Will Ponzi schemes now be known as Madoff schemes?
Posted on December 16, 2008By Jeff Ostrowski For decades, Charles Ponzi has been known as the king of the scammers. But Bernard Madoff makes Ponzi look like a piker. After all, Ponzi raised a measly $15 million back in 1920, a fraction of the $50 billion Madoff is alleged to have swindled...
Accenture, Guidewire Allegations Dismissed -- Accenture's 'bare allegations' are deemed insufficient to support either a claim that Guidewire stole trade secrets or the charge that Guidewire could be damaged by such allegations.
Posted on December 15, 200812/1/08 Ins. & Tech. 15 (2008) Anthony O'Donnell The Delaware U.S. District Court has dismissed both Accenture's trade secret misappropriation charges against Guidewire Software and Guidewire's subsequent charges claiming that Accenture's allegations constituted bad faith litigation that was harmful to Guidewire's prospects in the marketplace...
Wallis v. PHL Associates, Inc. (Cal App 11/25/08)
Posted on December 15, 2008Dale Wallis sued PHL and others for using a vaccine that she allegedly invented; PHL filed a cross-complaint against Dale Wallis, James Wallis, and Hygieia Biological Laboratories for misappropriation of trade secrets. A jury trial was conducted on the complaint only, with the jury finding in favor of Wallis...
S.D. New York : DEUTSCHE BANK SECURITIES INC., Plaintiff
Posted on December 15, 2008Provider of investment banking services brought action against clients, alleging claims for breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and misappropriation. Clients filed counterclaims for breach of contract and professional malpractice...
Jury Verdict : Telsa Motors sought the money the company paid for the design of the WhiteStar, reportedly about $800,000.
Posted on December 15, 2008In 2007, plaintiff Telsa Motors Inc., a producer of electric cars based in San Carlos, hired Fisker Coachbuild, LLP to design the interior and exterior of the WhiteStar, a proposed all-electric, four-door sedan. In November, the design was completed, and the relationship ended...
China irks US with computer security review rules
Posted on December 15, 2008The Chinese government is stirring trade tensions with Washington with a plan to require foreign computer security technology to be submitted for government approval, in a move that might require suppliers to disclose business secrets. Rules due to take effect May 1 require official certification of technology widely used to keep e-mail and company data networks secure...
Magleby & Greenwood Score Win for ClearOne
Posted on December 15, 2008The law firm of Magleby & Greenwood, P.C. scored a multi-million dollar damages award for ClearOne Communications, Inc. in a jury trial for misappropriation of trade secrets (and other claims) conducted last month, presided over by Judge Tena Campbell...
Columbus Steel Castings v. King Tool (Ohio App 12/4/08)
Posted on December 15, 2008Columbus sued King and Alliance Castings Co. for misappropriation of trade secrets and related claims. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Alliance and the appellate court affirmed in part and reversed in part. Both Columbus and Alliance produce bolsters for railroad cars; bolsters are steel crossbeams that are positioned under railroad cars for support and stabilization...
State secret: Who owns video lottery?
Posted on December 15, 2008By Jonathan Ellis Argus Leader The people of South Dakota have partnered with the video lottery industry for nearly 20 years, but the people know very little about their partners. South Dakota law bars citizens from accessing other than the most basic information about the industry...
Don't Steal, The Federal Reserve Hates Competition
Posted on December 13, 2008by Marc Gallagher The news that the Federal Reserve refuses to disclose the recipients of $2 trillion in lending leaves me (and should leave you) madder than hell. If every emergency, no matter how slight, results in the immediate suspension of our right to know, then one might reasonably question whether it is a right at all and whether this is a democracy...
As Economy Falters, More Employers Sue to Enforce Noncompetition Agreements
Posted on December 11, 2008By Kate Fazzini IBM was alarmed when Mark D. Papermaster, a 26-year veteran assigned to an "elite" unit with access to closely guarded information about the company's technology and business strategies, told his superiors that he planned to take a job with Apple Inc...
How proprietary is your confidential information?
Posted on December 10, 2008By: Sverre Roang Preparing a protection plan A better approach is to actively seek out and define the information, processes, and expertise within your company that are valuable and will remain valuable so long as they are secret. The next step is to implement a trade secret protection program...
Dion-Kindem & Crockett Announces U.S. District Court Orders Actress Kate Hudson Back to State Court to Answer Charges of Fraud and Misappropriation
Posted on December 10, 2008BUSINESS WIRE According to the law firm of Dion-Kindem & Crockett, the U.S. District Court ordered today that Kate Hudson and David Babaii for WildAid LLC respond to 220 Laboratories' lawsuit as it was originally filed against them. The District Court rejected the defendants' argument that 220 Laboratories' claims are preempted by the Copyright Act; the lawsuit will be sent back to be heard by the Superior Court of the State of California...
China irks US with computer security review rules
Posted on December 09, 2008By JOE McDONALD BEIJING (AP) -- The Chinese government is stirring trade tensions with Washington with a plan to require foreign computer security technology to be submitted for government approval, in a move that might require suppliers to disclose business secrets...
Secrecy, settlement and the public good
Posted on December 07, 2008By Linda Stamato NJVoices Sealing settlements from public view is a court practice that limits accountability to the public, erodes public justice, and, undermines democracy. It raises grave public concerns. Alan Medvin, the lawyer who argued the case for Public Citizen, said he hopes the decision by the appeals court gives judges pause before ordering documents hidden from public view...
Tesla vs Fisker: The Epilogue (Or, Why Tesla Owes Fisker $1.1 Million)
Posted on December 06, 2008By Carlos Lago Motortrend After Quantum and Fisker announced they had received proper funding in late October and would proceed with the Detroit Auto Show project, Tesla cancelled its contract under CEO Elon Musk's direction. On April 14, 2008, Tesla filed suit against Fisker, alleging fraud, breach of contract violation of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, and unfair competition...
Firms win victory on doctor gift rules
Posted on December 06, 2008By Liz Kowalczyk The Boston Globe Consumer advocates have been pushing for rules that require companies to disclose the full nature of their relationships with physicians, but biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies have been lobbying the Department of Public Health, which wrote the regulations, to exempt the disclosure of payments to doctors for research and research-related activities, arguing that such public scrutiny would scare off companies from funding clinical trials in Massachusetts...
Texas company claims bad faith deal led to theft of trade secrets, patent infringement
Posted on December 04, 2008By Marilyn Tennissen Light-sensor company Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions has filed suit against Intersil Corp., alleging the California-based maker of semiconductors infringed a patent for digital ambient light sensors used in flat panel displays...
Mass. Court: Professional Liability Policy Excludes Document Theft
Posted on December 03, 2008By Kenneth J. St. Onge Insurance Journal A document management company that allowed a client's sensitive documents to be taken is not covered by a professional liability policy with an intellectual property exclusion, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled...
Ashbaugh's Trade Secrets LLC Tops Credentialed Performance Management Consultancies Nationwide
Posted on December 03, 2008By Aria Munro PLANO, Texas -- Barb Ashbaugh is in the business of helping people and organizations reach their maximum potential, and Ashbaugh is a big believer in practicing what she preaches. Over the last 20 years, her Plano-based company, Ashbaugh's Trade Secrets LLC, has helped dozens of organizations from an array of industries including aeronautics, finance and health care, to increase efficiency, productivity, and profitability by using leading-edge evaluation and training to improve performance...
TAG Finance Society Examines Legal Priorities for High-Tech Organizations in Georgia
Posted on December 02, 2008By Agenna Mathley Strict data protection and data privacy regulations, intellectual property protection and human resource practices are some of the key priorities today's high-tech executives must balance in managing their organization's legal priorities...
ANTITRUST AND TRADE SECRETS: THE U.S. AND THE EU APPROACH
Posted on December 01, 2008Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal January, 2008 Katarzyna A. Czapracka This paper examines the divergent approaches to application of antitrust principles to trade secrets in the EU and in the U.S. The U.S. antitrust enforcers recognize the need to protect trade secrets and treat them as a type of intellectual property...
Offshoring to India: Are Your Trade Secrets and Confidential Information Adequately Protected?
Posted on November 30, 2008By Sonia Baldia Despite recent growth in other emerging markets, India continues to be the number one destination for outsourcing services involving information technology and business processes ("IT/BPO services"). In recent years, moreover, a new model of global sourcing to India known as knowledge process offshoring or "KPO" has taken hold in addition to the remarkably successful Indian market for IT/BPO services, with India emerging again as the global KPO"hot spot...
Cover Story: 'Hammer' Time
Posted on November 30, 2008By Linda Moss How One Consultant Extracts Cold Cash From Cable Ops In Retransmission-Consent Battle Lammers is a big player in the high-stakes battle between broadcasters and cable operators across the nation as, under federal law, thousands of retransmission-consent deals are set to expire Dec...
Lifetechniques sought damages for breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, tortuous interference with business relationships, misappropriation of trade secrets, conversion and civil theft.
Posted on November 30, 2008In June 2005, plaintiff Lifetechniques Inc., a San Antonio business owned by Vesta Brue, entered into a three-year employment agreement with Karen West. West was hired to serve as president of the division MedSignals, wherein she would help develop and market the MedSignals product from an office in West Palm Beach...
Halligan's patent application claims a "programmed computer method" that operates to identify trade secret information.
Posted on November 30, 2008From our friends at PeantentlyO BPAI: "Programmed Computer Method" Not Patentable Subject Matter Posted: 26 Nov 2008 04:31 AM CST Ex parte Halligan (BPAI 2008) Halligan's patent application claims a "programmed computer method" that operates to identify trade secret information...
ITALY: UNFAIR COMPETITION - VIOLATION OF KNOW-HOW AND TRADE SECRETS
Posted on November 30, 2008European Intellectual Property Review Case Comment Federica Santonocito & Agata Sobol. Case: H v B (App (Turin)) Reports the Turin Court of Appeal decision in H v B on whether a judge erred in dismissing a patent infringement claim relating to machines used for sorting and packing products...
SRP has big plans, but keeps them secret
Posted on November 29, 2008By Ryan Randazzo The Arizona Republic Salt River Project is working on something big - a coal or nuclear power plant, a large natural-gas plant, or maybe something else, but the ideas are secret. SRP's power panel was going to discuss the topic Tuesday during a public meeting, but kicked a reporter out of the room when the board members present decided to have their discussion in private, which is allowed if they were to discuss "trade secrets or privileged or confidential commercial or financial information," or things that give competitors an advantage...
Trials & Tribulations: Did carting firm salesman steal customers? - RecordOnline.com - The Times Herald Record
Posted on November 28, 2008By Oliver Mackson Michael DiMase of Milford, Pa., quit his job two months ago, telling his boss at a local waste-carting company that he wasn't happy with his salary and that he wanted to leave the burgeoning New York City suburbs to "slow his life down" in western Pennsylvania...
Sanctions Upheld Against Lawyer for Informing Client About Trade Secrets
Posted on November 27, 2008By: Evan Hill The Recorder IP attorney told client about confidential information that had wound up in public court file. Twelve years into a trade secrets dispute between an animal vaccine manufacturer and a former employee, lawyers for the manufacturer attempted to submit a document under seal that contained the purported secrets...
Insuring and Securing Your Network's Data
Posted on November 26, 2008By Joshua Gold Top Tech News Developing a smart data security protocol will not eliminate the risk posed by unauthorized access to private or sensitive data, but it should at least reduce it. And when the data genie does escape the bottle, risk transfer in the form of insurance coverage can hopefully soften the financial blow...
Apple's new VP could cause 'irreparable harm' to IBM, says judge
Posted on November 25, 2008By Gregg Keizer A federal judge ordered Apple Inc.'s newest executive to leave the company just five days after starting work because he might cause "irreparable harm" to his former employer, IBM, unsealed court documents show. In the opinion, Karas explained why he granted IBM's request for a preliminary injunction that blocked Papermaster from working for Apple, where he was to head iPod and iPhone hardware development...
Lubrizol Corp. worker gets prison for selling trade secrets to competitor
Posted on November 25, 2008Peter Krouse Plain Dealer Reporter Kim to betrayed his employer and sold trade secrets to a competitor in South Korea, according to a presentencing report filed by Kim's attorney. The information Kim handed over to SK Chemicals included the formula for making Estane, Lubrizol's leading brand of thermoplastic polyurethane, which is processed into tubing, medical garments, athletic shoes and auto parts, among other things...
Two Silicon Valley Engineers Receive One Year Prison Sentences
Posted on November 24, 2008By: Michael Barkoviak Daily Tech Ming Zhong, a permanent resident of the United States, and Fei Ye, a U.S. citizen, stole sensitive information from Sun Microsystems, Transmeta, NEC Electronics and Trident Microsystems in November 2001. The pair was arrested at the San Francisco International Airport after attempting to leave the country so they could launch a government-supported startup with the stolen computer chip designs...
Disagreement on economic impact of Depp film
Posted on November 23, 2008By CARRIE ANTLFINGER | Associated Press Writer The movie is a screen adaptation of Bryan Burrough's 2004 book "Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34." It describes the FBI's transformation when confronted with crime sprees by bank robbers John Dillinger, Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd and Lester "Baby Face Nelson" Gillis...
How to Avoid Getting Sued by a Former Employer
Posted on November 22, 2008by Meridith Levinson Such underhanded business practices -- both the recruiting to obtain trade secrets and the knee-jerk litigation -- pose a threat to IT workers, whose specialized knowledge and skills remain in demand even during this economic downturn...
Don't Get A Patent? Plainly Ridiculous!
Posted on November 21, 2008By: Gene Quinn IP Watchdog Trade secrets can provide protection, but only so long as the invention is secret and once you start distributing your invention the secret is lost. If you sell your invention or otherwise distribute your invention you have lost all trade secret rights that are associated with your invention because others will be able to see your invention, take it apart, learn about it and copy it if they want...
Shane Sutton mindful of trade secrets
Posted on November 20, 2008By: Ron Reed Former Australian cyclist Shane Sutton was surprised to find himself answering the door to the legendary Manchester United soccer boss and his assistants two weeks ago. Sutton, credited as the driving force behind the British takeover of track cycling, agreed to share the secrets behind his squad's astonishing performance, which yielded nine Olympic and seven world championships this year...
Jury Verdict : Software Firm Stole Trade Secrets, Financial Group Alleged
Posted on November 20, 2008In 2004, plaintiff Exchequer Financial Group contacted David J. Milazzo, a consultant, to seek his recommendation for a computer software firm to write software for a planned online raw foods business. Milazzo recommended Insight 360 Degrees and Insight Enterprises, sister companies whose principals were Tracy Rowley and Robert Mungo...
INVISTA Sues Rhodia in Delaware for Theft of Trade Secrets
Posted on November 20, 2008WILMINGTON, Del.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--November 13, 2008--In state court here yesterday, INVISTA filed suit against Rhodia for theft and misappropriation of INVISTA's world-leading chemical process technology. INVISTA originally filed a claim on Aug. 15 in federal court in the Southern District of New York, outlining how Rhodia and DuPont have teamed up to misappropriate INVISTA's world-leading adiponitrile (ADN) technology and are unlawfully using INVISTA's trade secrets to expand in the nylon chemicals business...
THE SCUDERI GROUP, LLC, Plaintiff v. LGD TECHNOLOGY, LLC, and Zheng (David) Lou, Ph.D., Defendants.
Posted on November 20, 2008An engine development company brought action against component manufacturer for misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements, breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and misrepresentation and fraud...
PARUS HOLDINGS, INC., Plaintiff, v. BANNER & WITCOFF, LTD., Charles Call, and Eugene Nelson, Defendants.
Posted on November 20, 2008A successor corporation brought action against counsel for predecessor corporation alleging they committed legal malpractice, breached their fiduciary duties, and committed trade secret violations by providing a former employee with confidential information about predecessor corporation's application for a patent...
Google and P&G trade secrets
Posted on November 19, 2008Written by Rosalie Marshall Google and Procter and Gamble today announced they have been swapping staff to increase their competitive edge. In what the firms have codenamed the "P&G Google Exchange", three Google employees were temporarily sent to P&G and 20 P&G employees were sent in the opposite direction...
New Zealand: Trade Secret Due Diligence
Posted on November 19, 2008This pierce comes from "New Zealand: Intellectual Property Due Diligence" by Simon Rowell. The author specifically refers to trade secret due diligence which is reproduced bellow: Trade Secret The purpose of trade secret due diligence is to determine the existence of valuable trade secrets, determine how well those secrets have been kept and identify any potential leaks of the secret...
DHEC keeping secrets
Posted on November 19, 2008By SAMMY FRETWELL and JOHN MONK The State Landfill operator Chem-Nuclear had persuaded regulators to withhold many of the files, arguing the information included trade secrets. Without the records, Guild lost a court case that could have forced tougher disposal practices at the 37-year-old landfill...
Executives Charged in Trade Secret Theft
Posted on November 18, 2008Written By: FBI Sang Ho Shin, Dong Sik Kim and Yeon Hee Lee are residents and nationals of South Korea and were employed as executives of SK Chemicals, a multinational chemical company located in Seoul, South Korea. The Indictment charges that from in or about late 2001 through in or about January 2008, Shin, Kim and Lee, conspired with Kyung J...
Obstacles to Licensing know how and trade secrets
Posted on November 18, 2008The following pierce comes from International Trade in Technology - Licensing of Know-How and Trade Secrets by Hans Verhulst, Consultant, Centre for Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries (CBI), The Netherlands. "Transfer of know how and trade secrets is not restricted to "technical" know how...
Information Warfare Article Index
Posted on November 17, 2008Strategyworld Squeezing The Chokepoint November 17, 2008: After years of efforts by Internet security firms and volunteer "white hat" (the good guys) hackers, governments are forcing ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to stop providing essential access for Internet criminals...
Government should be open and information should flow freely
Posted on November 16, 2008By Howard Owens The Batavian Often you hear people talk about how government should be run like a business, and it is a nice metaphor for reminding people that cost controls are important, and the books should be balanced, but the phrase masks a very important reality: Government is not a business...
INVISTA Sues Rhodia in Delaware for Theft of Trade Secrets
Posted on November 15, 2008BUSINESS WIRE On Nov. 6, following an Oct. 30 jurisdictional ruling by the federal court, INVISTA amended that New York federal lawsuit to focus on DuPont's misappropriation of intellectual property, unfair competition, and breach of contracts, and then filed this lawsuit in Delaware against Rhodia...
Papermaster countersues IBM in effort to join Apple
Posted on November 15, 2008By Jim Dalrymple, Macworld.com Papermaster contends that IBM's noncompetition agreement precludes him from working for any Business Enterprise or any major competitor of IBM. The lawsuit argues that since IBM business enterprise services and Apple's business is the design, manufacturing and marketing of consumer electronic products, the two are not major competitors...
Halliburton: Patenting Patent Trolling to Block Patent Trolls
Posted on November 13, 2008By Dan Slater Myhvold, perhaps the most written-about Law Blog subject who doesn't own a law degree, is the former chief technology officer for Microsoft who's quietly amassed a trove of 20,000-plus patents and patent applications. His firm, Intellectual Ventures, is using its clout to press tech giants into costly patent-licensing deals -- making it, in other words, one of the world's largest patent trolls...
DuPont sues ex-partner Invista over trade secrets
Posted on November 13, 2008In the latest salvo in a legal battle between the two companies in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, DuPont said Invista broke a Patent and Technical Information Agreement under which Invista is not allowed to use DuPont technology to make nylon engineering resins for several years...
Uganda: Trade Secrets Protection bill passed
Posted on November 13, 2008Uganda Business News In a debate on the Trade Secrets Protection bill passed into law by Parliament October 28, Masaka municipality Member of Parliament John Baptist Kawanga decried the transaction of commercial business based on outdated legislations...
Richard K. NIEMI, DBA as Richard K. Niemi Design and Engineering Services and RKN Technology, L.L.C., Plaintiffs-Appellants v. NHK SPRING CO., LTD.; NHK International, Ltd.; and New Mather Metals, Inc.
Posted on November 11, 2008An engineering designer of method of manufacturing stabilizer bars for automobiles brought actions against automobile component producer, and its parent corporation alleging misappropriation of trade secret, breach of contract, and promissory estoppel...
Ex-Intel worker indicted on $1B trade secrets theft Working for rival AMD, Biswamohan Pani accused of stealing trade secrets
Posted on November 11, 2008Network World Jon Brodkin An ex-Intel employee accused of stealing $1 billion worth of trade secrets and using them to help rival AMD was indicted in Massachusetts Wednesday, according to news reports. Biswamohan Pani, 33, of Worcester, Mass., was a design engineer at Intel's Hudson, Mass...
Yahoo's transforms data mining with open-source Hadoop
Posted on November 11, 2008By: Elise Ackerman The software, called Hadoop, is part of Yahoo's massive computing grid and is transforming the way Yahoo and corporate giants such as IBM extract meaning from enormous streams of data. Universities are also using the code - an open-source version of software Google relies on for daily operation - to train a new generation of computer scientists and engineers...
Residents voice concerns
Posted on November 11, 2008By: Loren Genson Gazette Staff Writer Upset citizens appeal to City Council over red-light cameras In a standing-room-only courtroom, more than 60 area residents voiced disapproval Monday with Chillicothe City Council's decision to install red-light cameras...
Thousands of Tucson-area DUI cases may get boot.
Posted on November 10, 2008By: A.J. FLICK Intoxilyzer 8000 may be ruled unreliable. According to CMI Inc. documents filed by prosecutors, eight states, three police departments and one other governmental agency use the Intoxilyzer 8000. It is approved for use in six other states and three other governmental agencies...
Do's and Dont's of Confidentialty Agreements
Posted on November 10, 2008By Todd Wilson Many growing businesses face the problem of having ideas that will give them a leg up on the competition or new products that will revolutionize their industries but lack the financial or intellectual resources to, without the assistance of partners, bring those ideas to fruition or to bring the products to market...
Ex-Intel worker indicted on $1B trade secrets theft
Posted on November 07, 2008By Jon Brodkin An ex-Intel employee accused of stealing $1 billion worth of trade secrets and using them to help rival AMD was indicted in Massachusetts Wednesday, according to news reports. Biswamohan Pani, 33, of Worcester, Mass., was a design engineer at Intel's Hudson, Mass...
Datalogic Scanning Brings Another Lawsuit against Metrologic
Posted on November 07, 2008EUGENE, Ore., Nov 06, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) Datalogic Scanning, Inc. announces that in August 2008 it commenced a lawsuit against Metrologic Instruments, Inc., a subsidiary of Honeywell International, in the United States District Courtfor the District of Oregon located in Eugene, Oregon, in which Datalogic alleges that Metrologic misappropriated trade secrets belonging to Datalogic...
ClearOne Awarded Multimillion-Dollar Damages by Jury in Federal Trade Secret Misappropriation Case
Posted on November 07, 2008SALT LAKE CITY, Nov 07, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ A jury trial was held in federal court in Utah in connection with the lawsuit (the "Intellectual Property Case") initiated by ClearOne against Biamp Systems Corporation ("Biamp"); WideBand Solutions, Inc...
Trade Secrets Protection in India and 'Sui Generis' Trade Secret Law
Posted on November 05, 2008Extracts from "India: Protection of Trade Secret" by Manisha Singh Nair Trade secrets are protected in India either through contract law or through the equitable doctrine of breach of confidentiality. It is common to insert clauses of confidential nature in a technology transfer or other license agreement to maintain the confidential nature of the subject matter, not only during the employment period of the employees and contractors but also after its termination, though for a fixed period of time...
Drug Industry Trade Secrets: Speaking Fees, Education Subsidies
Posted on November 05, 2008Posted by Jacob Goldstein Vermont is one of the only states in the nation that requires drug makers to report their payments to doctors and other health care providers. But the state's law has a provision (or loophole, depending on your point of view) that allows companies to flag their payments as "trade secrets" that the state can't disclose to the public...
Arbitrator backs Fisker over Tesla in green car spat
Posted on November 04, 2008By John Gittelsohn In April, San Carlos-based Tesla sued Fisker, an affiliated design company Fisker Coachbuild LLC, and the founders of the company, Henrik Fisker and Bernhard Koehler, alleging that the defendants stole trade secrets and performed inferior work to gain the edge in the race to introduce an electric-powered sports car...
ANTITRUST AND TRADE SECRETS: THE U.S. AND THE EU APPROACH
Posted on November 04, 2008Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal Katarzyna A. Czapracka Abstract This paper examines the divergent approaches to application of antitrust principles to trade secrets in the EU and in the U.S. The U.S. antitrust enforcers recognize the need to protect trade secrets and treat them as a type of intellectual property...
Enterprises stepping up fight against trade secrets theft
Posted on November 04, 2008InfoWorld Daily October 28, 2008 Jeremy Kirk FBI veteran says the payoffs for stealing trade secrets are high and the risks of getting caught are low. Enterprises are stepping up efforts to counter spying operations that aim to steal their trade secrets, according to a former U...
FAIVELEY TRANSPORT MALMO AB, Petitioner v. WABTEC CORPORATION, Respondent.
Posted on November 04, 2008A Swedish company manufacturing and supplying railway systems and services brought trade secret misappropriation action against American company, with which it had had a licensing agreement, seeking to preliminarily enjoin American company from undertaking certain commercial activities...
The Surprising Virtues of Treating Trade Secrets as IP Rights
Posted on November 03, 2008Mark A. Lemley Stanford Law and Economics Olin Working Paper No. 358 Trade secret law is a puzzle. Courts and scholars have struggled for over a century to figure out why we protect trade secrets. The puzzle is not in understanding what trade secret law covers; there seems to be widespread agreement on the basic contours of the law...
Global Crime Case: Cybercrime and Counterfeiting
Posted on November 03, 2008By Foltz, Joan E The Futurist Much of the modern organized crimes are very similar to the old. The most significant transformation from the streets to cyberspace has enlarged the territory of individuals and organized groups. Enabled by the Internet, criminals can operate in cyberspace where less governance, a transnational stage, and a multitude of transactions to monitor complicate surveillance and enforcement...
Sharing Your Global Supply Chain Knowledge -- The Right Way
Posted on November 02, 2008By Matthew B. Myers Knowledge sharing between supply chain partners has more upsides than downsides, provided that the right kind of knowledge goes back and forth. In global supply chains, managers consistently have struggled with sharing valuable knowledge with buyers and suppliers across borders...
More Than 145 Suspects Charged in US Export Enforcement Initiative
Posted on November 02, 2008By Jim Kouri On a daily basis, foreign states as well as criminal and terrorist groups seek arms, technology, and other materials to advance their technological capacity, weapons systems and, in some cases, Weapons of Mass Destruction programs. With America producing the most advanced technology in the world, it has become a primary target of these illicit technology acquisition efforts...
IBM Files Suit to Keep Chip Exec From Apple
Posted on November 02, 2008By David Needle Complaint says Mark Papermaster has key trade secrets about cutting edge tech that Apple shouldn't hire away. That's one reason the computer giant has filed a lawsuit against a former executive, Mark Papermaster, to prevent him from joining Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and honor a non-compete clause in his employment contract...
Taylor Recycling cleared in lawsuit over trade secrets
Posted on October 30, 2008By Michael Levensohn Times Herald-Record Taylor, located in Montgomery, has been working for several years on a gasification process that turns organic waste into a gas that can be burned to generate electricity. The lawsuit stemmed from an aborted joint venture between Taylor and FERCO Enterprises, now known as SilvaGas...
Fairness and The Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine
Posted on October 29, 2008When Trade Secrets Become Shackles: Fairness and The Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine Elizabeth A. Rowe Tulane Journal of Technology & Intellectual Property, Vol. 7, 2005 Should an employer be able to enjoin an employee from working for a competitor when the employee did not sign a non-competition agreement? Under the inevitable disclosure doctrine, an employer may obtain such an injunction on the theory that the employee knows so much of the employer's trade secrets, that it is inevitable she will disclose these secrets to the competitor...
The India Innovation Bill, 2008, and Trade Secrets: Part II @ SpicyIP
Posted on October 29, 2008This outstanding series of posts is from our friends at SpicyIP Blog Posted by Mihir Naniwadekar In an earlier post, I had looked at some of the provisions in the Innovation Bill, 2008 dealing with the protection of trade secrets. This post continues that discussion, and I now focus on a few areas in the Bill which are likely to be controversial...
Enterprises Face Losses From Trade Secret Thefts
Posted on October 29, 2008By: Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service Enterprises are stepping up efforts to counter spying operations that aim to steal their trade secrets, according to a former U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agent who now works for Xerox. Companies such as Wal-Mart, DirecTV and Motorola have in recent years been victimized by employees or others who stole sensitive data, said David Drab, a principal in Xerox's information and content security services section...
A TRADE SECRETS PRACTICE WITH EXTRAORDINARY BENCH STRENGTH AND A STRONG SENSE OF ECONOMIC TRENDS
Posted on October 28, 2008Metropolitan Corporate Counsel Volume 16, Number 9 Northeast Edition The Editor interviews Robert R. Baron, Jr., Partner, Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP. Editor: Mr. Baron, would you tell our readers something about your practice and professional background? Baron: My practice is focused on intellectual property litigation and complex business litigation...
WHEN TRADE SECRETS ARE SENT BY COMPUTER : FEDERAL LAW OFFERS ANOTHER WEAPON TO COMPANIES SEEKING PROTECTION
Posted on October 28, 2008The Connecticut Law Tribune Vol 34, No. 43 David S. Poppick A former employee, with a few computer keystrokes, sends his employer's confidential, proprietary documents and information from his work computer to his personal home computer before joining a competitor...
DENTAL IMPLANT COMPANY PAYS COMPETITOR $2M EMPLOYEE RAIDS, TRADE SECRET THEFTS WERE ROOT CAUSES OF LAWSUIT
Posted on October 28, 2008Connecticut Law Tribune Vol 34, No. 43 Christian Nolan Nobel Biocare USA LLC v. Keystone Dental Inc., et al: An upstart company in the dental implant market that was accused of stealing 18 employees from the industry leader has agreed to pay $2 million in damages as part of a settlement agreement...
Duo Charged In Hacking, Stealing Trade Secrets
Posted on October 28, 2008NEW YORK--Two former employees of a fashion industry company have been charged with computer hacking and stealing trade secrets. Jeffrey White, 27, of Brooklyn and Morgan Gantt, 24, of Jersey City, NJ, face charges arising out of an alleged scheme to hack into a computer network belonging to ENK International LLC ("ENK") and to steal confidential business information from ENK White and Gantt are former employees of ENK, a trade show organization based in Manhattan that serves the fashion industry...
ASSET MARKETING SYSTEMS, INC., Plaintiff-counter-defendant-Appellee v. Kevin GAGNON, d/b/a Mister Computer, Defendant-counter-claimant-Appellant.
Posted on October 28, 2008A field marketing organization, which offered sales and marketing support to insurance marketing entities, brought action in state court against at-will, independent contractor, alleging misappropriation of trade secrets and conversion. Contractor obtained removal, and filed counterclaims, alleging, inter alia, copyright infringement, unfair competition, and misappropriation of trade secrets...
The India Innovation Bill, 2008, and Trade Secrets: Part I @ SpicyIP
Posted on October 27, 2008This outstanding contribution is from our friends at SpicyIP Blog Posted by Mihir Naniwadekar A previous post on this blog looked at some of the important provisions in the National Innovation Bill, 2008. I now look at the impact which the Bill may have on the important area of protection of trade secrets...
AOL and GMC Extend 'Trade Secrets' Video Series
Posted on October 27, 2008Celebrity Chef Curtis Stone, Home Improvement Authority Eric Stromer and Decorating Expert Kelly Edwards Offer Consumer Tips with GMC Vehicle Integration NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AOL and GMC have extended their "Trade Secrets" video series on AOL Living, http://living...
Global accounting rules could reveal trade secrets
Posted on October 26, 2008By Marine Cole Big fear: Vague standards may require too much disclosure. The push for global accounting standards will create more difficulties than companies may anticipate, experts warned at a conference earlier this month on the transition to international financial reporting standards from U...
Spreading the Word Is No Secret in the N.F.L.
Posted on October 25, 2008By JUDY BATTISTA In the N.F.L.'s version of phone-a-friend, the calls start on Monday, coach to coach, player to player, trolling for the subtleties of a game plan -- a code word here, a tendency there -- that only a trusted colleague would share. It is the sort of conversation Brett Favre had with the former Detroit Lions president Matt Millen a few weeks ago, one that began with hunting talk, only to turn -- as Favre suspected it would -- into a fishing expedition for information about his old team...
When $700 billion is a low number
Posted on October 24, 2008By: David Rice Numbers are interesting. At times, numbers almost feel to possess a physical quality about them; numbers represent something we can hold, even if we cannot actually touch. Really big numbers, even those starting in the millions might be difficult to fathom at first, but somehow we're able to get our head around them; to hold them and manipulate them...
New Zealand: Intellectual Property Due Diligence
Posted on October 24, 2008Article by Simon Rowell In-Depth Due Diligence Trade Secrets The purpose of trade secret due diligence is to determine the existence of valuable trade secrets, determine how well those secrets have been kept and identify any potential leaks of the secret...
Appellate court reverses Lufkin trade secret conviction
Posted on October 23, 2008By JESSICA SAVAGE The Lufkin Daily News Thursday, October 23, 2008 A Texarkana appellate court has reversed a Lufkin jury conviction of an Alto man, ordering he be acquitted of theft of trade secrets because of insufficient evidence. The Texas Court of Appeals in the sixth district handed down the opinion Oct...
An Overview of Massachusetts Trade Secret Law
Posted on October 23, 2008By Marc C. Laredo Virtually all business entities have information that they consider proprietary and confidential. Whether such information is truly a trade secret whose use by others can be limited or barred depends on a number of factors, including the nature of the information sought to be protected and the measures taken to preserve its confidentiality...
Trade Secrets: Protection Best Practices
Posted on October 22, 2008By R. Todd Wilson All businesses have trade secrets. Stated slightly differently, every business has information that it would rather keep confidential. A trade secret can be any useful information that is not generally known. Trade secrets encompass both technical information such as formulas, designs, tools, manufacturing processes, and computer source code as well as business secrets including customer lists, employee lists, financial and accounting data, product plans and marketing plans...
Parts of a statutory law on trade secrets proposed in a draft bill by an Indian ministry have been described as "absolutely absurd" by an IP lawyer in the country
Posted on October 22, 2008Managing Intellectual Property Parts of a statutory law on trade secrets proposed in a draft bill by an Indian ministry have been described as "absolutely absurd" by an IP lawyer in the country The proposals are part of a draft National Innovation Act drafted by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and released by the Ministry of Science and Technology last week...
Tex App - Information at issue was clearly not a trade secret.
Posted on October 21, 2008Bluebonnet Petroleum v. Kolkhorst Petroleum Bluebonnet challenged a summary judgment in favor of Kolkhorst and also appealed the denial of its motion for partial summary judgment. The appellate court affirmed, rejecting the notion that the mere identity of the potential accounts on which Robinson was working when he left Bluebonnet was a trade secret...
Surgery Tool Maker Sues Rival Over Drill Guide Patent
Posted on October 21, 2008CLEARWATER, Fla., Oct 21, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Clearwater-based Orthopedic Development Corporation (ODC), the maker of the TruFUSE(R) spinal surgery system, has accused a rival of infringing both the patent and trade dress for a drill guide in one of the first patent design suits to be filed since the Federal Circuit handed down its standard-altering Egyptian Goddess ruling...
Comments on Trade Secret Sharing in High Velocity Labor Markets
Posted on October 20, 2008Post requested by our good colleague: Michael Risch West Virginia University College of Law SSRN-id1269039.pdf Abstract: This essay is an edited and supplemented version of comments made during the 2008 AALS Annual Meeting Section on Law & Economics panel...
Trade secrets are assets
Posted on October 20, 2008By: Bruce Freeman Q: I'm a small-business owner and have a great opportunity to work on a project with a large technology leader. They want a confidentiality agreement. But I hate contracts and am afraid that if I try to negotiate, I'll lose the deal...
SOFTWARE PROTECTION--INTEGRATING PATENT, COPYRIGHT AND TRADE SECRET LAW
Posted on October 19, 2008by Gregory J. Maier In intellectual property terms, software is a true hybrid. Although software has its origin in writing, it also possesses functionality, a property that clearly distinguishes it from ordinary writings. To write software, is to formulate instructions for reconfiguring a collection of electronic logic gates and memory cells into a virtual structure capable of accomplishing a predetermined objective...
Employee engagement: trade secrets
Posted on October 19, 2008By: Gordon Barker With the dramatic change in the global economic environment, organisations need more than ever before to focus on creating an engaging performance environment. With the dramatic change in the global economic environment, organisations need more than ever before to focus on creating an engaging performance environment for their employees...
Protecting IP: Should an invention hold patent or trade-secret status?
Posted on October 18, 2008By: Ted Barthel, Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek S.C. Your company has created a new innovation. Now you would like to protect this intellectual property (IP) asset and use it to create value for your business. Four types of IP protection exist: copyright, patent, trademarks, and trade secrets...
Do Internet Companies Overuse Nondisclosure Agreements?
Posted on October 17, 2008By Eric Goldman Nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) are often called the "Silicon Valley Handshake." In some circles, any conversation beyond pleasantries requires an NDA. However, NDAs have underappreciated and potentially strategic consequences. How did such an important agreement become so ubiquitous, and is ubiquity a good thing? NDAs' Benefits NDAs facilitate the disclosure of trade secrets...
Non-Compete Clause in Russia: Do the Laws Compete?
Posted on October 17, 2008The Moscow Times by Pepeliaev, Goltsblat Partners and Yury Ivanov A non-compete clause or covenant not to compete is a term used in contract law meaning that one party (usually an employee) agrees not to pursue a similar profession or trade in competition with another party (usually the employer)...
Judge Dismisses Aspects of Accenture's Suit Against Guidewire and Guidewire's Counterclaims.
Posted on October 17, 2008By Anthony O'Donnell Insurance & Technology October 16, 2008 Through an opinion written by Judge Sue L. Robinson, the Delaware U.S. District Court has dismissed both Accenture's trade secret missapropriation charges against Guidewire Software, and Guidewire's countersuit alleging that Accenture's allegations constituted bad faith litigation that was harmful to Guidewire's prospects in the marketplace...
Employment of a General Director: What a Company Needs to Know
Posted on October 16, 2008By Salans, Associate, Maria Landau, Alexandra Bludyan Employing a general director (president, general manager etc.) as a company's sole executive body is a complicated matter of particular concern to today's corporate owners and the authorized officials charged with the due maintenance of personnel documentation (i...
Don't be frightened of confidentiality agreements
Posted on October 16, 2008By BRUCE FREEMAN, Scripps Howard News Service Dear Professor Bruce: I'm a small business owner and have a great opportunity to work on a project with a large technology leader. They want a confidentiality agreement; but, I hate contracts and am afraid that if I try to negotiate I'll lose the deal...
P2P file sharing networks - unintended gateway to trade secrets, employee sensitive information
Posted on October 15, 2008Jackson Lewis LLP Joseph J. Lazzarotti The same software that allows you and your children to share music and movie files may be placing your company at grave risk. Commonly referred to as "peer-to-peer" or "P2P" networks, file sharing technology is being used by millions to share electronic files with one another...
KNIGHTS ARMAMENT CO. v. OPTICAL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY, INC.
Posted on October 15, 2008568 F.Supp.2d 1369 (July 15, 2008) Manufacturer of night vision devices sued competitor, asserting claims for alleged trademark infringement, false advertising, unfair competition under Lanham Act and Florida law, and deceptive and unfair trade practices under Florida law...
UNITED HEALTHCARE OF GEORGIA, INC. et al. v. GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNITY HEALTH.
Posted on October 15, 2008666 S.E.2d 472, 8 FCDR 2733 (July 28, 2008) Private health insurer that contracted with Department of Community Health (DCH) to administer state health insurance plan brought action to prevent DCH from disclosing, in response to a request under the Open Records Act, correspondence and form contracts submitted by insurer in connection with the contract, and requesters intervened and counterclaimed for disclosure of the documents, as well as of provider contracts and fee schedules prepared by insurer and never submitted to DCH...
Jury Verdict : Bury & Partners sued Mason, alleging breach of contract, tortious interference, breach of fiduciary duty and misappropriation of trade secrets.
Posted on October 15, 2008Bury & Partners claimed Mason's actions caused a client to break off a contract and to not bring expected future projects to the firm. It claimed this cost it $89,000 in past and expected future projects, and sought that amount plus attorney fees. In September 2005, plaintiff Bury & Partners, a Houston civil engineering firm, hired Deborah Mason, a civil engineer...
Indian Innovation Act: Trade Secrets and Confidentiality
Posted on October 15, 2008Wednesday, October 08, 2008 by: Kamakhya Srivastava The government's endeavour in bringing out a comprehensive legislation to boost research and innovation in the country has crossed the first milestone. The Draft National Innovation Act 2008 (hereinafter draft Innovation Act), put in place by the Department of Science and Technology, has a three pronged approach as evident by its preamble...
Outsourcing and its effect on Trade Secrets
Posted on October 14, 2008Trade Secret Theft "Secured facilities and rigorous employee screening can cut the risk." From www.computerworld.com Taking work offshore may cut costs, but it still comes with a not-so-hidden price. Asian countries, including the No. 1 outsourcing destination, India, have weak or untested intellectual property laws, inefficient courts, and financial and public records mechanisms that make it difficult to conduct employee background checks...
Protecting Your Software IP
Posted on October 14, 2008Data Loss Prevention and .NET Software Code: Protecting Your Software IP Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 Time: 2:00 PM Eastern; 11:00 AM Pacific Featuring speakers from: About the Webcast: While much attention has been paid to Data Loss Prevention (DLP), few organizations have remembered to protect some of their most valuable data: the intellectual property (IP) contained in deployed ...
Trade Secret Protection: International Trade and Investment Perspective
Posted on October 13, 2008An Overview of International Trade Secret Protection from the International Trade and Investment Perspective Pedro A. Padilla Torres Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) protection is one of the most important and current legal issues in the international trade arena...
LEDs Magazine - Lighting Science Group obtains preliminary injunction against Philips
Posted on October 13, 2008Company press release from Lighting Science Group Corporation *** NEW YORK -- Lighting Science Group Corporation, a developer and integrator of intelligent LED lighting solutions, announced that on October 7, 2008, the Superior Court of California for Sacramento County issued a preliminary injunction against Philips Solid State Lighting Solutions, Inc...
Licensing of Know-How and Trade Secrets
Posted on October 12, 2008International Trade in Technology - Licensing of Know-How and Trade Secrets by Hans Verhulst One of the effects of globalization is the relocation of production from the technology rich countries towards low labour cost countries. This is a threat for SME suppliers and manufacturers in technology-rich countries, whose customers turn their heads to low labour cost countries...
Regis First Quarter Revenues Grew Two Percent to $680 Million
Posted on October 12, 2008MINNEAPOLIS, Oct 06, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) ----Regis Corporation (NYSE:RGS), the global leader in the $170 billion hair care industry, today reported consolidated revenues increased 1.9 percent in the first fiscal quarter of 2009 to a record $680 million, compared to $668 million a year ago...
I-Flow Corporation Continues to Enforce Its Patent and Trade Secret Rights against Apex Medical's Solace(R) Pump Distributed by Zone Medical, LLC
Posted on October 11, 2008LAKE FOREST, Calif., Oct 10, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- I-Flow Corporation (IFLO: 7.09, +0.95, +15.5%) continues to enforce its patent and trade secret rights against Apex Medical Technologies, Inc. and its president, Mark McLaughlin, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California...
Trade secrets as collateral: a US perspective
Posted on October 10, 2008Scott J. Lebson Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice.2007; 2: 726-728 The collateralization of IP rights has emerged from the fringes of intellectual asset management and is now a major driver of commercial decisions as to how an IP portfolio should be cultivated...
Trade secret law and protection in India.
Posted on October 10, 200820 Intell. Prop. & Tech. L.J. 25 (October 2008) Wood, Larry R., Jr.; Hogan, Emmett M.; Bhadha, Charmayne; Dadrewala, Jennifer.
Intellectual Property and Indigenous Peoples
Posted on October 10, 2008Texas Wesleyan University School of Law is pleased to host a symposium on the topic of Intellectual Property and Indigenous Peoples, on Friday, October 24, 2008. The purpose of this symposium is to examine intellectual property concepts - copyrights, trademark rights, patent rights, and trade secrets - as applied to the cultural heritage, art, and artifact of indigenous peoples...
Morgan Hill man charged with possession of stolen trade secrets
Posted on October 10, 2008SAN JOSE - United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced that a criminal information had been filed, charging Robert Scott West with one count of possession of stolen trade secrets, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1832(a)(3). These charges are the result of a referral by Phillips Lumileds Lighting Company ("Phillips") and an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation...
We're too small for IT security policies
Posted on October 09, 2008As an IT manager for a midsize manufacturing company, I have spent the last four years trying to make my senior management understand that by lacking formal IT policies we risk electronic property loss, stolen trade secrets, unnecessary downtime, etc...
United States, Intellectual Property, Top 10 International Trade Commission Developments For 2008
Posted on October 09, 2008Article by Charles H. Sanders Offering speedy trials before IP-savvy judges and the powerful remedy of an exclusion order to stop infringing goods at the border, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has become an increasingly popular forum for enforcing IP rights...
Public Interest Groups Sue US Trade Representative Over 'Secret' Enforcement Treaty
Posted on October 07, 2008By Kaitlin Mara Perhaps no topic over the past year has been cause for more uneasy speculation within the intellectual property community than the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), primarily because the negotiating process for this treaty has been behind tightly closed doors...
SAFE Corporation Opens Grid Computing System for Software IP Comparisons
Posted on October 07, 2008CUPERTINO, CA, Oct 07, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- Software Analysis & Forensic Engineering Corporation ( www.SAFE-corp.biz), the leading provider of software tools for detecting and measuring software intellectual property, has just announced CodeGrid(TM), a distributed computing system that enables CodeSuite(R) jobs to be run many times faster than ever before...
India "National Innovation Act" and Trade Secrecy Provisions
Posted on October 06, 2008Spicy IP blog reports that Indian government has now released a draft version of the National Innovation Act, 2008 (hereafter "NIA"). Trade Secrecy Provisions The interesting and perhaps most substantive (at least in terms of enforceability) part of this Bill are the provisions on trade secrecy or "breach of confidence"...
Managing Intellectual Property: India trade secrets law dubbed "absurd"
Posted on October 06, 2008By Peter Ollier Parts of a statutory law on trade secrets proposed in a draft bill by an Indian ministry have been described as"absolutely absurd" by an IP lawyer in the country. The proposals are part of a draft National Innovation Act drafted by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and released by the Ministry of Science and Technology last week...
TUF hit with $4.5m trade-secrets theft verdict in US
Posted on October 06, 2008Bangkok Post Thai Union Frozen Products Plc (TUF) and two of its units have been ordered to pay a US food company $4.5 million plus legal fees in a trade-secrets case. Contessa Premium Foods Inc sued two of its former employees and TUF for trade-secret theft in California state court in Los Angeles in February 2006...
United States, Intellectual Property, Top 10 Intellectual Property And Regulatory Legal Issues For Biotech Start-Ups
Posted on October 05, 2008Article by Kelli N. Watson Francuzenko, Judith Toffenetti and Jennifer S. Gee Start-up biotech companies should address these key legal issues with the aid of legal counsel. Biotechnology start-ups face a dizzying array of business and legal requirements and a limited budget that forces them to prioritize where they expend valuable compliance funds on outside legal counsel...
Australia not sharing trade secrets for beef gene research
Posted on October 04, 2008Cross-country beef gene research Australia's Beef CRC has joined forces with the US Department of Agriculture and several American and Canadian universities to improve gene marker research. The gene markers of more than 15,000 animals will be studied...
Jury Verdict: Vax-D Medical Technologies LLC v. Allied Health Management LTD, et al
Posted on October 04, 2008Plaintiff Vax-D Medical Technologies, LLC, and Allied Health Management Ltd. entered into a confidentiality agreement regarding Vax-D therapeutic tables. The parties agreed that Allied would keep confidential certain trade secrets and information related to the tables, which were used for spinal decompression treatments...
Jury Verdict: Cooper Technologies Inc. v. Thomas & Betts Corp.
Posted on October 04, 2008In 2003 and again in 2006, plaintiff Cooper Technologies Inc., a Houston-based manufacturer of electrical equipment, obtained patents with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on two of its products -- connectors used by utilities to distribute high-voltage electricity...
Court of Appeal of Louisiana: MARINE PILE DRIVERS, L.L.C.v. WELCO, INC., et al.
Posted on October 04, 2008Designer of marine pile driving barge brought action against fabricator and others for injunctive relief and damages, alleging breach of contract and violations of the Louisiana Uniform Trade Secrets Act and the Louisiana Unfair Trade Practices Act. The Second Judicial District Court, Claiborne Parish, No...
C.D. California: BUNNELL, Forrest Parker, Wes Parker, and Valence Media, Ltd. v. MOTION PICTURE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
Posted on October 04, 2008Owners and operators of website that facilitated the copying and distribution of large files brought action against motion picture trade association, alleging that association procured and conspired to procure "hacked" private information that association then used to interfere with owners' business operation...
Traditional healers are warned
Posted on October 03, 2008By Ntokozo Mfusi Health MEC Peggy Nkonyeni has warned traditional healers to safeguard their knowledge and not give their trade secrets to anyone who came along. "We are selfish with this knowledge we were given by the ancestors and don't want it to be stolen by outside countries," Nkonyeni said on Thursday...
The economic valuation of trade secret assets
Posted on October 02, 2008by Halligan, R. Mark and Weyand, Richard F The economic valuation of trade secret assets has perplexed the intellectual property bar for years. The economic and legal issues are seemingly inextricably intertwined. We present here a method for valuation of trade secret assets that decouples the economic and legal issues, rendering the problem tractable...
Contessa Premium Foods Obtains Multi-Million Dollar Jury Verdict Against Thai Union International, Chicken of the Sea, Bryan Rosenberg & Others
Posted on October 02, 2008LOS ANGELES, Oct 02, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- A California Superior Court jury has found defendants Thai Union International, Inc., Empress International, Inc. and Chicken of the Sea Frozen Foods (collectively "Thai Union"), as well as Bryan Rosenberg and Brenden Beck (former employees of Contessa Premium Foods, Inc...
Non-Compete And Trade Secrets Cases On The Rise In New York
Posted on October 01, 2008The Editor interviews Gayle Rosenstein Klein , Principal in the New York Office of McKool Smith, PC , a national commercial litigation and intellectual property law firm with offices in Dallas, Austin, Marshall, New York and Washington, DC. Ms. Klein is an experienced courtroom lawyer who regularly handles litigation involving non-compete agreements and trade secret claims in state and federal courts throughout the United States...
Using Litigation to Understand Trade Secrets
Posted on October 01, 2008Using Litigation to Understand Trade Secrets: A Preliminary Exploration By Josh Lerner In recent years, there has been a growth in interest among economists in the litigation of intellectual property, as opposed the traditional focus on the grants of these rights and their subsequent citation in other awards...
Southeast Texas Record | Another coin company sues former employee over trade secrets
Posted on September 30, 2008By David Yates The suits filed by or against rare coin dealers in recent years could fill up even the largest of penny jars. The newest suit, The American Eagle Reserve LLC vs. Justin A. O'Neal, was filed Sept. 4 in Jefferson County District Court...
Trade Secrets in Public Infrastructure: Conflicting Values
Posted on September 29, 2008Secrecy and Unaccountability: Trade Secrets in Our Public Infrastructure David S. Levine Trade secrecy - the intellectual property doctrine that allows businesses to keep commercially valuable information secret for a potentially unlimited amount of time - is increasingly intruding in the operation of our public infrastructure, like voting machines, the Internet and telecommunications...
California's Edwards v. Arthur Andersen Decision And The Future for Employee Noncompetition Agreements And Other Post-Employment Restraints
Posted on September 28, 2008David J. Murphy, James Pooley Trade Secrets Report, August 2008 In a closely watched decision issued on August 7, 2008, the California Supreme Court in Edwards v. Arthur Andersen unanimously determined that a provision in an employment agreement restricting an employee from serving customers or competing with a former employer was invalid under California Business & Professions Code section 16600, which contains California's general statutory prohibition for noncompetition agreements...
CONCERN OVER PROTECTING TRADE SECRETS, AVOIDING FRAUD LEADS FIRMS TO HIRE PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS TO ASSIST THEM
Posted on September 28, 2008Broward Daily Business Review Vol 49, No. 188 (September 5, 2008_ SPIES ON THE RISE : CONCERN OVER PROTECTING TRADE SECRETS, AVOIDING FRAUD LEADS FIRMS TO HIRE PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS TO ASSIST THEM Tresa Baldas baldas0@yahoo.com A blend of advanced technology, increased litigation and rising fears about trade secrets theft and financial fraud is driving law firms and corporate counsel to the doors of former FBI agents and ex-prosecutors with a knack for solving crimes...
6th Cir - Reasonableness of efforts was a question for trier of fact.
Posted on September 28, 2008Niemi v. NHK Spring Co., Ltd. (9/19/08) The trial court dismissed the claims against Spring, the parent corporation of New Mather Metals, Inc. ("NMM"), for lack of personal jurisdiction and awarded summary judgment to NMM on all of Niemi's claims. The 6th Circuit upheld the trial court's dismissal of the claims against Spring, but held that there was sufficient evidence to create fact issues on the trade secret and promissory estoppel claims...
Florida: Infinite Energy, inc. v. Thai Heng Chang (N.D. Fla. Aug. 29, 2008)
Posted on September 28, 2008Erika Birg In this breach of employment contract and misappropriation of trade secrets case, plaintiff moved to compel production of e-mails from defendant's personal Yahoo! account. Plaintiff contended that Defendant used this specific e-mail account to engage in the activities upon which this entire lawsuit is based...
D. Minnesota: COYNE'S & COMPANY, INC v. ENESCO, LLC
Posted on September 28, 2008Giftware company brought action against competitor seeking temporary restraining order and against giftware manufacturer that was in receivership, receivers of manufacturer's assets, and competitor, alleging interference with contractual and prospective relations, promissory estoppel, violation of Lanham Act, copyright infringement, deceptive trade practices and misappropriation of trade secrets in violation of Minnesota law, conversion of goods and good will, violation of Minnesota Franchise Act, unfair or inequitable practice in violation of Minnesota law, breach of contract, and rescission of share purchase agreement...
Firm Entitled to Arbitrate Fee Dispute With ConnectU
Posted on September 28, 2008New York Law Journal A New York judge has ruled that Quinn Emanuel is entitled to arbitration of its claim for $13 million in unpaid legal fees from social networking company ConnectU, which the law firm represented in a high-profile trade secrets suit against rival Facebook...
Reg Weydeven column: Col. Sanders' chicken recipe still a well-kept secret | Postcrescent.com | Appleton Post-Crescent
Posted on September 27, 2008Reg Wydeven A trade secret can be one thing that separates a business from its competitors. That one nugget of knowledge that makes a company's product stronger, faster, lighter or just otherwise better can be worth millions of dollars. That's why companies work so hard to protect their trade secrets...
Trade Secret Law: An Impediment to Trade in Computer Software
Posted on September 27, 2008by Jay Dratler This article analyzes the state of the law protecting intellectual property rights in computer software, discusses current business practices used in attempting to deal with that body of law, and proposes legislative solutions to facilitate commerce in software...
Protecting Know-How and Trade Secrets in Collaborative R&D Relationships
Posted on September 26, 2008By Gene Slowinski, Edward Hummel and Robert Kumpf Technology is the currency of the new millennium. Firms that develop and/or acquire proprietary positions in leading edge technologies create a solid foundation for growth. However, the days when one firm internally creates all of the technology it needs to compete in the market place are over...
What's the difference between trade secrets and commercial secrets?
Posted on September 26, 2008As I was trolling the Pierce Law print collection on interesting trade secret things to blog I noticed several books out of Europe in the late 1990s dealing with "commercial secrets".Thereafter there we few to no books on the topic. Without sitting down with the UTSA, I wonder whether trade secrets are a part of the larger area of commercial secrets...
Protective Orders in Pretrial Discovery Phase Keep Journalists Unplugged - Technology - redOrbit
Posted on September 26, 2008By Townsend, Virgie Millions of pages of documents have been hidden from the public in a high-profile federal court antitrust case between two computer giants, illustrating how parties are able to essentially secretly litigate disputes in public courts...
Entrepreneur(R) Magazine's Coveted Annual Ranking of Top Franchises at the Center of Trade Secret Dispute
Posted on September 25, 2008SOURCE Entrepreneur Media, Inc. IRVINE, Calif., Sept 24, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- To protect the integrity of one of the most recognized and relied upon sources of business information for entrepreneurs and franchisors, Entrepreneur Media, Inc...
Trade Secrets as Collateral
Posted on September 25, 2008The paper titled Trade Secrets and Non-Traditional Categories of Intellectual Property as Collateral by Jeffrey D. Dunn & Paul F. Seiler Presented to UNCITRAL ,Second International Colloquium on Secured Transactions: Security Interests in Intellectual Property Rights speaks of utilizing the full value of Intellectual Property assets in obtaining financing...
Copyright Deposits and Trade Secret Protection
Posted on September 24, 2008by William Patry on The Patry Copyright Blog Sometimes copyrighted works contain trade secrets or confidential information. Out of concern with making such material available for public disclosure, particularly in software, the Copyright Office has issued regulations that permit the deposit of less than all of the work...
Daily Herald | Motorola sues ex-employees for stealing trade secrets
Posted on September 24, 2008By Amie Shak Schaumburg-based Motorola Inc. named four former software engineers employed at its Libertyville and Schaumburg offices in a lawsuit filed Tuesday alleging the theft of $600 million in trade secrets with plans to take them to China, officials said...
TAKEDOWN FOR TRADE SECRETS ON THE INTERNET
Posted on September 23, 2008Introducing a Takedown for Trade Secrets on the Internet Elizabeth A. Rowe ,Wisconsin Law Review, Vol. 2007, No. 5, 2007 When a trade secret owner discovers its trade secrets have been posted on the Internet, there is currently no legislative mechanism by which the owner can request that the information be taken down...
Singapore Reveals Management Of Its Sovereign Wealth Fund
Posted on September 23, 2008By Zakaria Abdul Wahab SINGAPORE, Sept 23 (Bernama) -- The trade secrets of Singapore government's huge sovereign wealth fund and foreign investment arm are out. The workings of the fund, the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation or better known as GIC, was made public by its Deputy Chairman and Executive Director Dr Tony Tan when he presented the first "Report on the Management of the Governments Portfolio for the Year 2007/08" here today...
Court Rejects Motion by Rocket Software to Dismiss CA's Claims of Copyright Infringement and Trade Secrets
Posted on September 22, 2008pr-usa.net Federal Judge's Decision Based on Rocket's Alleged Concealment of Wrongdoing ISLANDIA, N.Y. - In CA's case against Rocket Software, Inc. seeking damages of at least $200 million and preliminary and permanent injunctions for misappropriation of CA software products for DB2®, a federal judge denied Rocket's motion to dismiss as untimely CA's claims for copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets...
TRADE SECRETS, PATENTS FOR TECHNOLOGY, AND OTHER IP GOODS MAKE UP $30 BILLION-$70 BILLION OF THE ASSETS OF TOP FIRMS
Posted on September 22, 2008Developing countries told to protect creative goods, output from universities Business World, MANILA, PHILIPPINES Developing countries must catch up with their richer counterparts in terms of protecting and promoting the creation of intellectual property, such as research findings, industrial designs, and crop species, or else risk losing out bilions of dollars in revenue to the more IP-savy nations, experts said in a forum yesterday...
BIOTECH INDUSTRY CAN BE BENEFITED IF THE TRADE SECRETS ARE USED IN TANDEM WITH THE PATENT PROTECTION
Posted on September 21, 2008Trade Secrets vs. Patents in Biotech Industry: The Indian Scenario Praveen K. R. Singh & Shweta Dubey Being a knowledge-based industry, the biotech industry needs a strong intellectual property (IP) regime. However, as the industry pushes the horizons of knowledge, the present IP regime seems to be falling behind for various reasons including ordre public and morality...
CDPHP sues former underwriting director for $10M - The Business Review (Albany):
Posted on September 21, 2008The Business Review (Albany) - by Adam Sichko The Capital District Physicians' Health Plan Inc. has sued a former employee for $10 million, alleging that he stole company secrets and gave them to his new employer, a rival health insurer. A hearing is set for Sept...
TRADE SECRET MORE ATTRACTIVE TO VENTURE CAPITAL INVESTORS THAN A "WEAK" PATENT
Posted on September 20, 2008Intellectual Property - The Basis for Venture Capital Investments Mario W. Cardullo Venture capitalists want to maximize returns and minimize risks. The risks they must consider in reference to the intellectual property include: market, financial, management and technological...
"Three Pitfalls for Trade Secret Plaintiffs"
Posted on September 20, 2008by Benjamin K. Riley, Spring/Summer 2008. (cite: ABA Business Torts Journal: Trade Secrets Issue. Vol. 15 Num. 3; posted 09/16/2008; © 2008 Benjamin K. Riley) is available to IPO and ABA IP Section members with passwords.
SUN MEDIA SYSTEMS, INC., Plaintiff v. KDSM, LLC and Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., Defendants
Posted on September 20, 2008A direct mail advertiser, which conducted advertising campaigns for television broadcasters, filed suit against broadcasters, alleging copyright infringement, breach of contract, and misappropriation of trade secrets. Broadcasters filed motion for summary judgment...
Groups want registry for gifts to doctors
Posted on September 20, 2008BY JOHN CURRAN MONTPELIER -- Calling transparency the best antidote to influence buying, two groups involved in mental health called on the state Wednesday to close a loophole in disclosure laws that allows drug companies to make donations to doctors without publicly identifying the recipients...
Coca-Cola and KFC's secret formulas are safe--for now
Posted on September 18, 2008By Emily Ngo, amNewYork Nation/World Editor The famed formula behind its soda -- under wraps for 122 years and stowed in an Atlanta bank vault -- is rarely accessed. Executives won't even disclose how many employees know the formula, acknowledging only that the number is low...
PROTECTION OF U.S. TRADE SECRET ASSETS: CRITICAL AMENDMENTS TO THE ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE ACT OF 1996
Posted on September 17, 2008Compliments of our friend and global trade secret expert R. MARK HALLIGAN Protection of US Trade Secret Assets.pdf ABSTRACT In order to protect the economic interests of the United States, the Economic Espionage Act was enacted in 1996. Although intended to prevent and deter trade secret theft, the EEA is limited to criminal prosecutions...
PROPOSING A MECHANISM FOR REMOVING TRADE SECRETS FROM THE INTERNET
Posted on September 17, 200812 No. 3 J. Internet L. 3 (September, 2008) Elizabeth A. Rowe Late on a Friday afternoon in October, Wal-Mart executives discover that the content of their sales circulars for the entire Christmas season has just been posted on fatwallet.com, a bargain-shoppers discussion forum...
Jury Verdict : Parties Traded Suits Over Use of Plaintiffs' Customer List
Posted on September 17, 2008The plaintiffs sought $171,000 for lost profits, $320,000 for punitive damages, and an unspecified amount for general damages and costs incurred to replace the defendants' services. In January 2003, plaintiffs Huong Que Inc. and Con Tu purchased a calendar-publishing business from Mui Luu and Cu Tu Nguyen, who were also retained as managing agents...
Trade Secrets Case Highlights Electronic Records Issues
Posted on September 17, 2008From our friends at IPfrontline Tuesday, September 16, 2008 by: William A. Nolan Departing employees can all too often spawn trade secret litigation in the chemical industry. This longtime issue is now frequently combined with the newer issues associated with electronic discovery...
CHINA´S NATIONAL IP STRATEGY 2008 PROPOSES TO BUILD A "TRADE SECRET" SYSTEM
Posted on September 17, 2008Worldwide: China´s National IP Strategy 2008 Feasible Commitments Or Road To Nowhere Paved With Good Intentions? Danny Friedmann China's State Council promulgated a national intellectual property strategy [1]. In the policy document there is a lot of talk about doing everything more efficient and more effective...
United States: Trade Secrets Case Highlights Electronic Records Issues
Posted on September 16, 2008This case illustrates some interesting possibilities. First, it is likely a company will reveal its wrongful use of its competitor's proprietary information through electronic "fingerprints." A company that utilizes a competitor's proprietary information in its business probably has committed it to electronic form, and, if you are the plaintiff, you may well be able to find it...
Judge: Worker, Chinese businesses stole Serenex trade secrets
Posted on September 15, 2008Durham biotech company Serenex Inc. has won a $57.5 million judgment against a former contract worker and others who, a judge says, spied on Serenex and stole its trade secrets.
INDIAN GIANT TATA MOTORS ARGUES: "AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE THREE PARTIES A TRADE SECRET"
Posted on September 14, 2008Tata Motors argument before the Calcutta High Court of treating The Tata Nano project as a commercial project for the purpose of disclosure of its pact with West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) and treating the same as Trade Secret has not gone down well...
Former Intel engineer charged with stealing trade secrets
Posted on September 14, 2008Between June 8 and June 10, while working for both chip makers, Pani allegedly remotely accessed and downloaded 13 top secret documents from an encrypted system at Intel. Some of the downloaded documents allegedly include design details on Intel's newest chips...
INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF TRADE SECRETS LAW FOR MANAGEMENT OF TRADE SECRETS OUTSIDE UNITED STATES
Posted on September 13, 2008International Aspects of Trade Secrets Law by Karen A. Magri There is no global law of trade secrets or even a definition of what constitutes a trade secret. Moreover, unlike the case for patent, copyright, and trademark law there are no comprehensive international treaties pertaining to trade secrets...
Big Pharma and Health Care: Unsolvable Conflict of Interests Between Private Enterprise and Public Health/Commentary/Author's Response
Posted on September 12, 2008Recent events and reports increasingly suggest misalignment between the interests of the pharmaceutical industry and those of public health. Johnson & Johnson illegally and effectively promoted Propulsid off-label for children despite internal company documents raising safety concerns...
Indian Government Committee: "trade secrecy" form of protection is sufficient to comply with Article 39.3 of TRIPS
Posted on September 11, 2008INDIAN GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE SAYS "NO" TO DATA EXCLUSIVITY by Shamnad Basheer on http://spicyipindia.blogspot.com/ After multiple deliberations spanning more than 3 years, a government committee has finally submitted its report on regulatory data protection and Article 39...
Dassault Systemes Confirms Media Report Concerning a Trade Secret Violation by Siemens PLM Software GmbH
Posted on September 11, 2008THE IDENTIFICATION ISSUE IN TRADE SECRET LITIGATION
Posted on September 06, 20088/26/2008 Legal Intelligencer Darin W. Snyder and David S. Almeling Trade secret litigation presents a unique issue in intellectual property litigation. With all other types of intellectual property, the subject matter is identified in publicly available material -- a registered copyright or trademark, an issued patent or a publicly available product...
TRADE SECRETS AND THE ROME II REGULATION ON THE LAW APPLICABLE TO NON-CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS
Posted on September 06, 2008E.I.P.R. 2008, 30(8), 309-319) European Intellectual Property Review TRADE SECRETS AND THE ROME II REGULATION ON THE LAW APPLICABLE TO NON-CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS Christopher Wadlow. Discusses the protection of trade secrets in private international law, focusing on the impact of Regulation 864/2007 (Rome II)...
Boston energy company faces suit ; Fall River company files patent infringement case over trade secrets
Posted on September 06, 2008JON CHESTO; By JON CHESTO, The Patriot Ledger BOSTON - A Boston energy company that makes synthetic gas from construction and demolition debris faces a legal fight from a pair of firms that claim their patents and trade secrets have been misappropriated...
Jury Verdict : Legal Battle After Dairy Feed Workers Formed Rival Company
Posted on September 06, 2008Cargill and Can claimed $10.4 million in damages as a result of the alleged misappropriation of trade secrets and breach of the confidentiality agreement. On Jan. 31, 2007, Matt Budine, Brian Sundberg and Luciana Jonkman left plaintiff Cargill Incorporated to form their own dairy-nutrition consulting business, Progressive Dairy Solutions Inc...
Court of Appeals of Georgia: Atlanta Bread Company International, Inc. v. Lupton-Smith et al.
Posted on September 01, 2008663 S.E.2d 743, 2008-1 Trade Cases P 76,184, 8 FCDR 1907 Franchisee brought action against franchisor, alleging that franchisor wrongfully terminated franchise agreements. The Superior Court, Cobb County, Robinson, J., granted partial summary judgment in favor of franchisee, denied franchisee's motion for judgment on the pleadings, and denied franchisor's motion for summary judgment...
Superior Court, San Mateo County, California: Radiant Skincare Clinic v. Linda Moore and Rejuvenate Inc.
Posted on September 01, 2008Radiant Skincare sought damages for lost profits and unjust enrichment, as well as punitive damages. In 2002, plaintiff Radiant Skincare Clinic began providing non-surgical aesthetic services. In 2004, Linda Moore, one of the founding partners, left to start a competing business, Rejuvenate Inc...
U.S. District Court, W.D. Texas : Spectrum Creations L.P. v. Carolyn Kinder International LLC and The Uttermost Co.
Posted on September 01, 2008Spectrum sought $21.2 million in lost profits as of August 2006, and CKI was seeking royalties of $1 million. Each said its damages were continuing to accrue. They also sought attorney fees. Plaintiff Spectrum Creations, a seller of lamps, light fixtures, and other home decorating products, claimed that lamp designer Carolyn Kinder International (CKI) failed to provide all the designs called for in their 2003 design services agreement...
SD NY - Reverse engineering process was fatally tainted.
Posted on September 01, 2008Faiveley Transport Malmo AB v. Wabtec Corp. (8/22/08) The court granted in part and denied in part Faiveley's motion for a preliminary injunction. The information at issue (data set forth in manufacturing drawings) did constitute trade secrets. Such information was not widely known outside the business; the evidence showed that no other company had succeeded in producing a complete BFC TBU unit...
Protecting Trade Secrets
Posted on September 01, 2008Paul A. Tedesco Introduction Universities, contract research and early stage companies involved in drug discovery or development of platform technologies will often partner with larger firms. Patent applications are usually inappropriate during these preliminary phases, yet most of these collaborations require considerable transfer of files and data between and among different entities...
"Intellectual Property and Restrictive Covenants" Free Download on SSRN
Posted on September 01, 2008ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LABOR AND EMPLOYMENT LAW AND ECONOMICS, Dau-Schmidt, Harris & Lobel, eds., Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009 San Diego Legal Studies Paper No. 08-059 ORLY LOBEL, University of San Diego - School of Law, Harvard Law School Email: lobel@sandiego...
Invista Sues DuPont and Rhodia to Over ADN Trade Secrets
Posted on August 23, 20088/19/08 Chemweek's Business Daily Koch Industries ' (Wichita, KS) fibers subsidiary Invista has filed a lawsuit against DuPont and Rhodia, alleging that the two companies have "teamed up to steal" Invista's butadiene-based adiponitrile (ADN) technology...
Tennessee Uniform Trade Secrets Act -- a primer for trade secret holders
Posted on August 23, 2008Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC Bradley E. Trammell The Tennessee Uniform Trade Secrets Act (TUTSA) was enacted by the Tennessee General Assembly to provide protection to individuals and businesses who possess trade secrets. Thus, Tennesseans who have trade secrets should be guided by the Act and the case law interpreting the Act...
New : United States District Court, S.D. Iowa - C&J v. Anderson
Posted on August 23, 2008Background: Lessors of various equipment to businesses brought action against former employee and competitor, alleging claims for breach of fiduciary duties, civil conspiracy, unjust enrichment, copyright infringement, misappropriation of financial trade secrets, aiding and betting breach of fiduciary duties, and trademark violation...
Court: Charges rightly tossed
Posted on August 21, 2008BY JERRY MITCHELL An appeals court has upheld the dismissal of most criminal charges against five former Eaton Aerospace employees accused of stealing trade secrets from the Jackson company for aerospace contracts. "It was a home run," declared their attorney, Ed Blackmon Jr...
Enforcing Restrictive Covenants in Times of Layoffs
Posted on August 21, 2008By Jonathan Stoler In these challenging economic times, layoffs and corporate reorganizations are becoming more commonplace. Employers in the midst of such job actions are also being forced to address an array of employment laws and business issues relating to these matters...
Trade secrets snatched by former software exec., suit claims
Posted on August 21, 2008By Ann Knef A California company that supplies data application systems to real estate agents is suing a former executive for violating trade secrets. IDX Media LLC of Sebastopol, Calif., claims its former vice president for product development, Daniel Evans of Belleville, solicited multiple clients to end their work with IDX and switch to a new company Evans planned to form...
Computer Issues When Key Personnel Defect
Posted on August 17, 2008By Leonard Deutchman Pennsylvania Law Weekly My firm provides digital forensics and e-discovery services. Most of our digital forensics investigations and analyses involve employees who have left their former employers for a rival or to start their own business...
Allstate Admits it has Dirty Hands
Posted on August 17, 2008Allstate the "good hands" people have decided to forgo hundreds of millions of dollars in profits rather than show their "dirty hands" to Floridians. Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty announced on Friday that Allstate Corp. will give it's existing Florida policyholders an additional 5...
Court of Appeals of Indiana : BAKER v. TREMCO
Posted on August 13, 2008A former employee brought action against his former employer, a construction products manufacturer business, seeking declaratory judgment that noncompete clause was unenforceable, and damages for tortious interference with a business relationship, breach of contract, and violation of state "blacklisting" statute...
Rethinking 'Reasonable Efforts' to Protect Trade Secrets in a Digital World
Posted on August 13, 2008Elizabeth A. Rowe University of Florida - Fredric G. Levin College of Law Abstract: One advantage of using trade secret law to protect valuable business information or inventions is the ease and relative inexpensiveness of that form of intellectual property, versus for instance, seeking patent protection...
The Noncompete Ruling Won't Change Anything, Anywhere
Posted on August 11, 2008By Jason Kincaid Earlier this week, California's Supreme Court reaffirmed the state's position on noncompete clauses: they're almost never valid, except for in a few specific circumstances. While this has been the state's policy since 1872, the law recently came into question in the case of Edwards II v...
Chinese spy sentenced to 15 yrs in US prison
Posted on August 11, 2008Associated Press WASHINGTON (AFP) -- A Taiwan-born American who admitted spying for China was given more than 15 years in prison, the US Justice Department said Friday. Tai Shen Kuo, 58, of New Orleans, Louisiana, was sentenced by federal court in Virginia to 188 months in prison, and required to forfeit 40,000 dollars, after he pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to deliver US military information to China...
Keeping secrets : Judges sometimes hide all aspects of civil lawsuits
Posted on August 11, 2008By Tracy Neal and Scott Davis Can knowing about the mere existence of a lawsuit be damaging ? Recently, Circuit Judge Xollie Duncan requested that reporters leave her courtroom. The reason: A hearing in a civil lawsuit. The suit had been filed under seal, which meant not only court filings were sealed, but the proceedings in June were held outside of the press and public...
Calif. High Court Brightens Rule Against Non-Compete Pacts
Posted on August 11, 2008By Cheryl Miller In a ruling long awaited by the employment law sector, the California Supreme Court on Thursday effectively rejected the use of most non-competition agreements in California (pdf). In Edwards v. Arthur Andersen, S147190, the unanimous court held that a state statute with roots in 19th century laws gives California workers great freedom to switch jobs, to compete against old employers and to solicit former clients...
Maker of Electric Sports Car Sues a Competitor - New York Times
Posted on August 11, 2008By JOHN MARKOFF SAN FRANCISCO -- Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley maker of electric sports cars, filed suit in San Mateo Superior Court on Monday against a competing company and two of its employees, saying they stole some of Tesla's design ideas and trade secrets...
Calif. high court bans employee noncompete pacts
Posted on August 11, 2008by Gina Keating, editing by Richard Chang LOS ANGELES, Aug 7 (Reuters) - The California Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the state's strict ban on most employee noncompetition agreements, ruling that companies cannot in any way limit a former employee's ability to ply his trade...
Jury Verdict : North American Title Co. Inc. v. Liberty Title Co., Land America Financial
Posted on August 09, 2008The jury awarded a total verdict of $2.8 million. Dan Wentzel, the former president and CEO of plaintiff North American Title Co., founded Liberty Title Co. as a joint venture with Land America Financial Group and Land America Alliance. Approximately 30 employees from three North American Title offices were hired by Liberty Title...
THE IP CONUNDRUM: PROTECT YOUR ASSETS WITH THE PATENT ACT OR THE TRADE SECRETS ACT?
Posted on August 06, 2008The Recorder, Vol. 132, No. 147, July 30, 2008 Chris Scott Graham and Jill Kopeikin Many companies operate under the assumption that a robust patent portfolio is the sine qua non to the best protection of intellectual property. Consistent with this philosophy, employees are instructed to compile the information necessary to apply for patent protection, and significant company resources are expended in that pursuit...
Norit Americas Announces Lawsuit Alleging Misappropriation of Trade Secrets
Posted on August 06, 2008Market Watch MARSHALL, Texas, Aug 06, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Norit Americas, Inc. ("Norit") announced today it filed a lawsuit against ADA-ES, Inc. , ADA Environmental Solutions, LLC, and current ADA-ES employees, John Rectenwald and Stephen D. Young...
Revenge: iRobot Selling Former Foe's Machine
Posted on August 06, 2008By Noah Shachtman Last year, iRobot accused one of its former engineers, Jameel Ahed, of stealing its trade secrets to build his "Negotiator" machine. Today, the company turned the tables, announcing it will start selling Ahed's robot as its own. Ahed and his Negotiator generated enormous interest in the military robotics community, as a low-cost alternative to iRobot's PackBot...
Georgia doctors sue for access to United's contracts with state plan
Posted on August 05, 2008By Amy Lynn Sorrel Appeals have been filed asking the state Supreme Court to determine whether some documents should be treated as public records or exempted as trade secrets. When the South Georgia Physicians Assn. LLC noticed that the health insurer administering Georgia's state employee health benefits plan was requiring different contract terms for rural doctors than for those in urban areas, the group got suspicious...
YOU CAN STAND UNDER MY UMBRELLA: WEIGHING TRADE SECRET PROTECTION AGAINST THE NEED FOR GREATER TRANSPARENCY IN PERFUME AND FRAGRANCED PRODUCT LABELING
Posted on August 04, 2008Journal of Intellectual Property Law Spring, 2008 Introduction Most people are probably familiar with the infamous tagline question posed at the conclusion of Britney Spears' provocative "Curious" perfume commercial: "Do you dare?" Ironically, considering the significant restriction trade secret law currently places upon the federal government's ability to enforce its own regulations regarding perfume ingredients, the "Curious" tagline could not possibly ask a better question...
Miss. court says pet food research not public
Posted on August 01, 2008The Associated Press JACKSON, MISS. --The Iams Company's records from seven years of pet food research at Mississippi State University are not public documents, the state Supreme Court has ruled. In 2006, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sued Mississippi State University...
Two Department of Defense Contractors Plead Guilty to Conspiracies Involving Fuel Supply Contracts
Posted on August 01, 2008WASHINGTON -- Two U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) contractors, both U.S. citizens who previously lived in Prague, Czech Republic, pleaded guilty today to various conspiracy charges related to their business of providing fuel supply services to the DOD...
Oracle expands theft allegations against SAP
Posted on July 30, 2008By Brandon Bailey Oracle fired a new volley across the bow of rival software-maker SAP today, alleging in court papers that members of SAP's executive board ignored warnings and knowingly allowed an SAP subsidiary to steal Oracle's trade secrets. The new charges are part of a 2007 lawsuit in which Oracle, the Redwood City-based business software giant, claims that SAP subsidiary TomorrowNow was illegally downloading Oracle's proprietary software and using it to support TomorrowNow customers...
Oracle Steps Up Fight With SAP in Filing - WSJ.com
Posted on July 30, 2008By Ben Worten Oracle Corp. alleged in a federal-court filing Monday that executives at rival SAP AG knew that an SAP subsidiary was stealing Oracle trade secrets. The filing is the latest salvo in a suit Oracle brought against SAP in U.S. District Court in San Francisco in March 2007...
How to Keep Corporate Secrets a Secret
Posted on July 30, 2008By H. Abelson, K. Ledeen, H. Lewis One of the problems with corporate data breaches is the catastrophic risk to corporations when trade secrets, customer lists, pricing data and other critical information are exposed. Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen and Harry Lewis, authors of "Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness after the Digital Explosion," explain how companies can use the right mix of process, people and advanced technologies to keep their data secure--and their CIOs out of the headlines...
MPAA hired hacker to 'spy' on The Pirate Bay
Posted on July 30, 2008by Andre Yoskowitz According to new court documents, it appears that the MPAA hired a hacker to reveal the identities of the administrators of the infamous torrent tracker The Pirate Bay, the same hacker who was found to be 'spying' on the torrent site TorrentSpy last year...
MOTOROLA SUES IPHONE SALES EXECUTIVE OVER TRADE SECRETS
Posted on July 29, 2008Motorola is suing a former executive now employed by Apple's iPhone sales division, charging him with the theft of trade secrets. Michael Fenger is the defendant, who was an executive for Motorola. According to the complaint, he is now vice president for global iPhone sales after joining Apple in March...
Report: Overseas Intellectual Property Rights Attache Program Is Generally Working Well, but a Comprehensive Operating Plan Is Needed
Posted on July 29, 2008Department of Commerce Office of Inspector General - United States Patent and Trademark Office, The Overseas Intellectual Property Rights Attaché Program Is Generally Working Well, but a Comprehensive Operating Plan Is Needed, Final Report IPE-19044/July 2008...
After Mixed Signals, $10 Billion Motorola Trade Secrets Dispute Settled
Posted on July 29, 2008Daily Business Review After a false start, a settlement was reached Tuesday in the $10 billion trade secrets dispute in Florida between Motorola and a defunct Fort Lauderdale-based company. The confidential agreement was reached hours after an earlier hearing to discuss a settlement was canceled...
MACK TRUCKS, INC. CASE
Posted on July 29, 2008A franchisee brought action against franchisor alleging violation of the Sherman Act and Robinson-Patman Act (RPA). The franchisor counterclaimed alleging misappropriation of trade secrets. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Ronald L...
Sweeden: Legislative Amendments Proposed to Strengthen Protection of Trade Secrets
Posted on July 29, 2008Contributed by Advokatfirman Vinge On June 10 2008 a Swedish governmental committee assigned with the task of reviewing and potentially proposing amendments to the Act on Trade Secrets submitted its report entitled "Strengthened Protection for Trade Secrets"...
Trade secrets dispute with "Barbie" maker Mattel
Posted on July 29, 2008On Friday a lawyer for MGA Entertainment, the maker of "Bratz" dolls, said the company requested a new trial in its trade secrets dispute with "Barbie" maker Mattel after a juror was dismissed for making an ethnic slur against MGA's CEO. The judge has set a hearing for August 3 to decide whether the trial should proceed.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF the CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM, et. al. CASE
Posted on July 27, 2008A 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...
COVAD COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY CASE
Posted on July 27, 2008A Communications company, providing integrated voice and data communications, including digital subscriber line (DSL) services, as alternative to local phone companies, filed suit against customer lead generation services provider, claiming breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing, breach of fiduciary duty, and conversion by taking proprietary customer lead information for voice over internet protocol (VoIP) marketing campaign and integrating such information into provider's federated database and sharing it with competitors...
"The Surprising Virtues of Treating Trade Secrets as IP Rights"
Posted on July 27, 2008Stanford Law and Economics Olin Working Paper No. 358 This paper can be downloaded without charge from the Social Science Research Network MARK A. LEMLEY, Stanford Law School Email: mlemley@law.stanford.edu Trade secret law is a puzzle. Courts and scholars have struggled for over a century to figure out why we protect trade secrets...
e-Rate firm settles $750K lawsuit
Posted on July 26, 2008BY HILARY FUNK ? JULY 25, 2008 Montgomery-based e-Rate Consulting Services may have a shortage of funds, but there's no shortage of lawsuits. Jonathan M. Slaughter, owner of the business, has worked out an agreement to settle two lawsuits by paying $750,000 in installments to a Florida school system that said ERC failed to pass on more than $600,000 the system should have received in federal rebates...
Second Circuit overturned a summary judgment in favor of accused trade-secret infringer Cadbury Stani
Posted on July 24, 2008Transfer no gross trademark McDermott Will & Emery The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned a summary judgment in favor of accused trade-secret infringer Cadbury Stani (Stani) after determining that the license in suit was ambiguous and inapposite for determination on summary judgment...
Jury Verdict : Plaintiffs Sued Insurer for Failing to Investigate Claim, Refusing to Pay
Posted on July 24, 2008Decision is for the Plaintiff. In a bench trial, the court found in favor of Acacia Research and CombiMatrix, awarding $35,635,822.66 in damages. The award included $21,464,484.20 for actual damages incurred in excess of the policy retention; $10,288,656...
Mattel Wins Trade Secret Case
Posted on July 24, 2008Yesterday a California jury found in favor of Mattel Inc., maker of Barbie dolls, in its high profile suit against MGA Entertainment Inc., maker of Bratz dolls, and its chief executive. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Mattel alleged that MGA essentially stole the idea for Bratz from Mattel through a secret collaboration with designer Carter Bryant, who Mattel said invented the doll while on its payroll...
Man charged with stealing trade secrets from Andover firm
Posted on July 24, 2008By Mark E. Vogler and Jim Patten ANDOVER -- Police have charged an employee of a local job placement agency with stealing client information and giving it to a former co-worker who was fired earlier this year over similar allegations. Timothy Corcoran, a veteran worker at Staffing Group/Andover Personnel, is accused of stealing possible job leads, resumes and other classified information and giving it to Henry Jacobo at Brooks Staffing & Associates -- a North Andover company he helped set up last December before being fired from Staffing Group...
Clear Channel says settles Tribune lawsuits
Posted on July 24, 2008by Robert MacMillan NEW YORK (Reuters) - Clear Channel Communications Inc said on Wednesday it settled lawsuits against Tribune Co and several former Clear Channel employees lured away by the newspaper publisher and broadcaster. Clear Channel said Tribune agreed not to further solicit or hire Clear Channel employees under contract...
Government can't withhold data on serious car accidents, court rules
Posted on July 23, 2008By Ken Bensinger, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the government may not withhold key data on serious car accidents from the public. The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia potentially ends years of litigation over the data, and could soon put crash information collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration into the hands of journalists, consumer watchdogs and others...
After Mixed Signals, $10 Billion Motorola Trade Secrets Dispute Settled
Posted on July 23, 2008By Alana Roberts and Catherine Wilson After a false start, a settlement was reached Tuesday in the $10 billion trade secrets dispute in Florida between Motorola and a defunct Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based company. The confidential agreement was reached hours after an earlier hearing to discuss a settlement was canceled because both sides hadn't come to terms, despite telling the judge they had...
Fort Lauderdale-based SPS Technologies settles $10 billion case against Motorola -- South Florida Sun-Sentinel.com
Posted on July 22, 2008By Marcia Heroux Pounds Fort Lauderdale-based SPS Technologies Corp. has settled its $10 billion trade secret case against Motorola for an undisclosed sum, lawyers representing SPS said today. The parties settled Monday night before a pre-trial hearing scheduled for this morning...
Motorola accuses Apple IPhone executive of taking trade secrets
Posted on July 18, 2008Bloomberg News Motorola Inc., the largest U.S. mobile-phone maker, has sued a former executive now working for Apple Inc., accusing him of disclosing its trade secrets to aid in the marketing of Apple's iPhone. Apple introduced the newest version of its year-old iPhone wireless device on July 11, selling about 1 million of them in its debut weekend at a base price of $199...
Taiwan electronics maker Hon Hai wages judicial battle against Chinese competitor - International Herald Tribune
Posted on July 18, 2008The Associated Press TAIPEI, Taiwan: Taiwan's giant electronics manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. appears to have a big advantage in the China market -- its principals all speak Chinese and have an intuitive sense for the country's often bewildering business culture...
California confidential: the same California public policy that disfavors noncompete clauses also restricts the enforcement of confidentiality agreements.
Posted on July 18, 2008Los Angeles Lawyer June, 2008 James W. Denison [FNa1] Attorneys are often called upon to draft agreements intended to protect a client's proprietary rights. The client may wish to prevent an employee from using information after leaving. Or, the client may want to keep its vendors or potential business partners from disclosing its information to the competition...
Panel approves bill allowing GAO to sue agencies
Posted on July 16, 2008By Dan Friedman The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday passed a bill that would boost the Government Accountability Office's power to examine the executive branch through steps that include a legislative remedy to a court ruling that said the congressional auditing agency lacks the legal authority to sue for information about Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force...
Taiwan manufacturer Hon Hai seeking China rights
Posted on July 16, 2008By DEBBY WU Like other Taiwanese companies, giant electronics manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. appears to have a big advantage in the China market - its principals all speak Chinese and share an intuitive sense for the country's often bewildering business culture...
Judge backs action against Nvidia and AMD on price fixing
Posted on July 16, 2008By Paul Hales IN A BARELY-REPORTED development, a judge has lauded evidence in a case against apparent arch-rivals Nvidia and AMD which stand accused of artificially keeping the price of graphics cards high. A San Franciscan law suit combines "at least" 51 separate civil complaints against the GPU makers, according to a report here...
The Door Store Is Accused of Misappropriation of Ideas - July 16, 2008 - The New York Sun
Posted on July 16, 2008By HOPE HODGE An award-winning New York City furniture designer is suing the parent company of a furniture retail chain, claiming the Door Store commissioned another designer to copy his furniture for profit. In a complaint filed yesterday in state Supreme Court, John Kelly, of John Kelly Furniture Design in Manhattan, said the Door Store's CEO, Jodi Brinkman Fitzgerald, dismissed John Kelly Furniture Design as a supplier after finding that she could get "virtually identical" furniture from a competitor, Ligna USA Inc...
Maryland Daily Record
Posted on July 14, 2008BY BRENDAN KEARNEY Cluck-U Corp., the Laurel-based chicken chain that requires customers to sign a waiver when ordering the hottest of its hot sauces, is turning up the heat on a former franchisee in Calvert County. According to a federal trademark lawsuit filed in U...
Bally hit with suit on hiring of CEO
Posted on July 14, 2008By Ameet Sachdev Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp.'s recent hiring of its chief executive has touched off a lawsuit from a competitor over the possible misappropriation of trade secrets. Michael Sheehan joined the Chicago-based gym operator as CEO on July 1, after nearly eight years at 24 Hour Fitness USA Inc...
ED Pa - No showing that information constituted a trade secret.
Posted on July 12, 2008Parexel International Corp. v. Feliciano (6/30/08) Parexel claimed that Feliciano improperly acquired or retained custody of its confidential proprietary information, including its customer lists, without Parexel's consent and in violation of Feliciano's employment agreement...
TRADE SECRETS AND THE ROME II REGULATION ON THE LAW APPLICABLE TO NON-CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS
Posted on July 12, 2008E.I.P.R. 2008, 30(8), 309-319 Christopher Wadlow. Abstract: Discusses the protection of trade secrets in private international law, focusing on the impact of Regulation 864/2007 (Rome II). Notes what is determined by the applicable law and details the approach of the travaux preparatoires and Regulation to unfair competition...
Former HP exec pleads guilty to stealing trade secrets
Posted on July 12, 20087/11/08 InfoWorld Daily News Grant Gross Former Hewlett-Packard vice president of imaging and printing services shared confidential information about IBM's product costs and materials with superiors A former vice president of imaging and printing services at Hewlett-Packard has pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets from IBM, the U...
Defense Department official sentenced to 5 years for China espionage
Posted on July 11, 2008By Mike Rosen-Molina A judge in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia [official website] Friday sentenced [DOJ press release] a former US Department of Defense (DOD) official to almost five years in prison for disclosing national defense information to Chinese agents...
Former HP executive pleads guilty to stealing trade secrets | ITworld
Posted on July 11, 2008by Grant Gross July 11, 2008, 04:19 PM -- IDG News Service -- A former vice president of imaging and printing services at Hewlett-Packard has pleaded guilty to stealing trade secrets from IBM, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Atul Malhotra, age 42, of Santa Barbara, California, was charged June 27 with one count of theft of trade secrets, and he pleaded guilty Friday in U...
Job Squad Inc. v. Champion Industries, et al
Posted on July 11, 2008PA - Lisa Kerr Michael Folio; J - Walker Job Squad, a local nonprofit, filed a suit against Champion Industries, seeking $2.2 million in damages. Job Squad claims Champion stole confidential information and business clients. The suit also names Rhonda Copen, a former project manager at Job Squad, as a defendant...
Merced concrete company awarded $2.5m from rival
Posted on July 11, 2008By Scott Jason MERCED -- Central Valley Concrete won a $2.5 million settlement Thursday against a competitor, which a jury said feigned interest in buying the company so it could gain access to financial records and evaluate its potential for success in the Merced market...
Brothers vs. brother: Firm says trade secrets its own
Posted on July 10, 2008By Barrett Newkirk ANDERSON -- A dispute over corporate intellectual property involving three brothers has become a courtroom food fight. Indianapolis-based Darlington Farms and co-owner Phil Hockemeyer filed a lawsuit against Rubicon Foods LLC, a company founded by Hockemeyer's younger brothers, Steve and Todd, and based at the Flagship Enterprise Center...
Transfer No Gross Trademark!
Posted on July 10, 2008Article by Kenneth E. Crowell 10 July 2008 The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned a summary judgment in favor of accused trade-secret infringer Cadbury Stani (Stani) after determining that the license in suit was ambiguous and inapposite for determination on summary judgment...
Former HP VP Charged With Stealing IBM Trade Secrets
Posted on July 10, 2008MarketPlace News July 11, 2008 ? Vol.30 Issue 28 A federal grand jury has charged Atul Malhotra, a former vice president at HP, with allegedly stealing trade secrets from IBM, his former employer, and distributing them. Malhotra worked at IBM from November 1997 through April 2006, and in March 2006 he asked for and received confidential information on IBM's calibration metrics...
Retail ATMs | BREAKING: Judge grants preliminary injunction against ATM consultant Global Cash Systems | ATM Marketplace
Posted on July 10, 200810 Jul 2008 GULFPORT, Miss. -- A judge in Mississippi has granted Triton System's request for a preliminary injunction against Global Cash Services, a newly created ATM consultancy that's been working with ATM manufacturer GRG Banking Equipment Co. Ltd...
Editorial - The Government and Your Laptop - Editorial - NYTimes.com
Posted on July 10, 2008EDITORIAL The Department of Homeland Security is routinely searching laptops at airports when Americans re-enter the United States from abroad. The government then pores over or copies the laptop's contents -- including financial records, medical data and e-mail messages...
Protecting your trade secrets
Posted on July 09, 2008TradeSecretNotebook.pdf Called A brief guide to preserving intellectual capital this might be a good primer to share with new employees who might be working with trade secrets.
Trade Secrets: General Guidelines Every Employee Should Know
Posted on July 09, 2008EFaragi IP Litigation Reporter 1.30.07.pdf Introduction When most people think of trade secrets, they imagine Coca-Cola's famous recipe locked in a heavily secured vault or the names of Colonel Sanders' 11 herbs and spices dancing in the heads of a select few KFC executives...
The Morning News: Business : Wal-Mart Wins Permanent Gag Order Against Former Worker
Posted on July 09, 2008Kimberly Morrison Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has won a permanent gag order and agreed to drop its lawsuit against a fired security employee who detailed to media what he said were the retailer's surveillance practices. A Benton County judge Monday granted Wal-Mart a permanent injunction against Bruce Gabbard, a technician who alleged that a manager pressured him to find security leaks...
Innovative Solutions gains in intellectual property case
Posted on July 08, 200807/08/2008 UWCHLAN -- A U.S. District Court recently issued several rulings in favor of Innovative Solutions & Support Inc. in a two-year-old intellectual property case. The U.S. District Court for Tennessee's western district awarded Innovative Solutions $17...
Charity sues charity for theft of donor list
Posted on July 08, 2008By Michelle Massey, Texarkana Bureau MARSHALL - Two employees and a board member of the Longview charity American Syringomyelia Alliance Project ("ASAP") recently resigned and started a new nonprofit with the same mission. ASAP believes they took more than experience to the new nonprofit and asserts one or more of the former staff members took a copy of ASAP's database of donors...
Microsoft tells EU court ?899 million fine too steep
Posted on July 08, 2008By Emil Protalinski The Microsoft-European Union antitrust dust-up has been going on for quite some time. The saga continues, as Microsoft has submitted a filing to the EU Court of First Instance detailing why the most recent fine imposed by the EU, ?899 million ($1...
MediaSentry denies being investigators to avoid licensing
Posted on July 07, 20087 July 2008 12:18 by Rich "vurbal" Fiscus As the RIAA's campaign of file sharing lawsuits against customers has gone on a number of interesting legal questions have been raised about how investigations are being conducted. MediaSentry is responsible for finding and identifying computers sharing copyrighted music on behalf of RIAA attorneys...
Award increased to IS&S in trade-secrets case
Posted on July 07, 2008Philadelphia Business Journal Monday, July 7, 2008 Innovations Solutions & Support Inc. said Monday that a federal court has increased the amount awarded to it in a trade-secret misappropriation case to more than $23 million from more than $6 million...
IBM Buys Its Way Out of Antitrust Trouble
Posted on July 05, 2008By: Maureen O'Gara Jul. 4, 2008 06:30 AM IBM Has Gotten Out from Under A Threat to its Multibillion-dollar Mainframe Monopoly The fireworks over Armonk this 4th of July are going to be a bit brighter and more awesome because - by the flick of a checkbook - IBM has gotten out from under a threat to its precious multibillion-dollar mainframe monopoly...
Google Vs. Viacom - Federal Judge Rules 50-50
Posted on July 05, 2008by Daisy Sarma - July 3, 2008 The ongoing legal battle between Google and Viacom over YouTube has resulted in a 50-50 situation for Google. The bad side of the deal for Google is that it has, as per the order of a federal judge, to turn over all YouTube user histories to Viacom; the good side is its search code and IP is safe...
En Pointe Files Suit in Employee Dispute
Posted on July 05, 2008By DEBORAH CROWE Los Angeles Business Journal Staff IT services provider En Pointe Technologies Inc. is countersuing a Toronto competitor that claims En Pointe is hiring away its employees to gain access to its trade secrets. Gardena-based En Pointe said Thursday that it is seeking a court declaration that Softchoice Corp...
ASIP Holds "Patents of Inventions and Trade Secrets" Course
Posted on July 05, 2008pecial to ag-IP-news Agency AMMAN - The Arab Society for Intellectual Property (ASIP) announced on Wednesday that the registration for the third course of the Arab Certified Intellectual Property Practitioner (ACIPP) program entitled "Patents of Inventions and Trade Secrets" has started...
Viacom tries to stop trade secrets leaking
Posted on July 05, 2008Fatima Schroeder A Cape Town company that has been developing an instant mobile messaging service to rival the popular Mxit, is applying for a High Court order to stop a former employee moving to a group that owns 30 percent of the Mxit business, fearing he may divulge secret information...
YouTube: Trade secrets are safe but your information isn't
Posted on July 05, 2008A judge has ordered YouTube to hand over information about every video watched including logins and user IP addresses to Viacom, which is suing the video sharing service for $1billion. YouTube won't be forced to hand over its source code to Viacom because a US judge has ruled that it is a trade secret, but the same judge has ruled that the video sharing site must turn over the record of every video watched including user names and IP addresses to the media giant...
Tongjitang Chinese Medicines Company Granted Trade Secret Status for Flagship Product Xianling Gubao
Posted on July 04, 2008Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week Tongjitang Chinese Medicines Company (NYSE: TCM) ("Tongjitang" or the "Company"), a vertically integrated and profitable specialty pharmaceutical company focusing on the development, manufacturing, marketing and selling of modernized traditional Chinese medicine ("TCM") in China, announced that the Ministry of Science and Technology and the National Administration for the Protection of State Secrets of the People's Republic of China have granted the Company national trade secret status for its flagship product, Xianling Gubao ("XLGB")...
Random Search Stops $600 Million In Trade Secrets Bound For China
Posted on July 04, 2008CommwebNews.com The feds have indicated a software engineer who was flying to China with confidential technical documents, a thumb drive, four external hard drives, 29 recordable compact discs, and a videotape. A former software engineer for a telecommunications company based near Chicago was indicted for allegedly stealing trade secrets worth an estimated $600 million and trying to take the documents to China...
SILICON VALLEY ENGINEER SENTENCED FOR ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE
Posted on July 04, 2008A U.S. federal judge has sentenced a former Silicon Valley software engineer to two years in federal prison for stealing military technology and trying to sell it to the Chinese government, the first defendant to be convicted under the anti-espionage provisions of a 12-year-old federal law...
D. Ma : court would not award double or treble damages against defendants for their
Posted on July 04, 2008Background: Complaint and counterclaim were filed relating to the control of a small Spanish-language bi-weekly newspaper. After defendants withdrew from litigation and agreed to turn over entire control of paper to plaintiffs, jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiffs...
EX-HP EXEC WON'T CONTEST TRADE-SECRET THEFT CHARGES
Posted on July 04, 2008A former Hewlett-Packard executive has agreed not to contest federal charges that he stole trade secrets from his previous employer, IBM, and attempted to pass the information to colleagues at HP. Atul Malhotra was a vice president for printing services at IBM when he obtained confidential pricing information in March 2006, according to charges filed Friday in San Jose's U...
Google Sued For Trade Secret Theft
Posted on July 04, 2008July 4, 2008 A small company called LimitNone, dealing in the development of software products, has filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging theft of trade secrets. The suit has been filed in the Cook County Circuit Court of Illinois. LimitNone are seeking damages to the tune of $1 billion...
Former HP VP charged with stealing IBM trade secrets
Posted on July 04, 2008By Sharon Gaudin July 2, 2008 (Computerworld) A former Hewlett-Packard Co. vice president was indicted by a federal grand jury last week for allegedly stealing trade secrets from his former employer, IBM. Atul Malhotra is charged with allegedly e-mailing confidential IBM information to two senior vice presidents at HP...
YouTube: Trade secrets are safe but your information isn't
Posted on July 04, 2008Kevin Anderson YouTube won't be forced to hand over its source code to Viacom because a US judge has ruled that it is a trade secret, but the same judge has ruled that the video sharing site must turn over the record of every video watched including user names and IP addresses to the media giant...
it is popular in some quarters to blast big tobacco or big oil or big pharma, arrangements for delayed publication of research that may have commercial value is commonplace at all universities, for it is an essential step to protect patent rights.
Posted on June 29, 20086/23/08 Richmond Times-Dispatch A16 Philip Morris-VCU Deal Is Not Unusual HENRY A. McGEE JR. Editor, Times-Dispatch: Criticism of VCU has appeared in the press recently concerning arrangements for publication of results from university research that has been supported by Philip Morris...
Debtor's liability on trade secrets claim and fixing minimum amount of that iability, was neither "contingent" nor "unliquidated"
Posted on June 29, 2008Background: Motion was filed to dismiss debtor's Chapter 12 case, on ground that at least 50% of debtor's noncontingent, liquidated debt did not arise out of farming operation, as required for debtor to qualify as "family farmer" eligible for Chapter 12 relief...
Federal appeals court affirms dismissal of copyright and trade secret misappropriation claims against Oprah Winfrey for concept behind "Oprah's Big Give" TV program
Posted on June 28, 2008Seyfarth Shaw LLP Tim Nelson Tracy v. Winfrey, et al., No. 07-1630 (1st Cir. June 11, 2008). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of Darlene Tracy's copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation suit against Oprah Winfrey, Harpo Productions, and ABC Television...
LimitNone filed a trade secret suit against Google Inc. in Illinois, alleging that Google misappropriated software
Posted on June 28, 2008Yesterday software developer LimitNone filed a trade secret suit against Google Inc. in Illinois, alleging that Google misappropriated software for migrating information from Microsoft Office to Google Apps. The developer says it was a member of an authorized Google developer program and was promised that Google would not build a similar tool itself...
CA : statute of limitations began to run when owner had reason to suspect that buyer knew or should know that software contained trade secrets
Posted on June 28, 2008Background: Owner of trade secrets brought trade secret misappropriation action against buyer of its competitor's software. The Superior Court, Santa Clara County, No. CV019992, Marc B. Poche, J., granted owner's motion in limine to exclude evidence relating to statute of limitations...
PATENT--SECRET MIX IN COMPLEX PRODUCT FIRMS
Posted on June 27, 2008Elisabetta Ottoz, Franco Cugno University of Turin Copyright © 2008 by American Law and Economics Association; Elisabetta Ottoz, Franco Cugno Different protection mechanisms may be employed at the same time when an innovation is comprised of separately protectable components...
START-UP SUES GOOGLE OVER E-MAIL SWITCHING TOOL
Posted on June 27, 2008Google has been named in a trade secrets lawsuit alleging that the company's business software unit copied a tiny start-up's tool for moving customers off of Microsoft software onto Google's. LimitNone filed a complaint in an Illinois circuit court alleging that Google at first began promoting the smaller firm's tool for migrating Microsoft Outlook customers to Gmail, then copied the idea and went into competition with it...
ED Pa - Party failed to prove the existence of a trade secret.
Posted on June 27, 2008Fishkin v. Susquehanna Partners, G.P. The court found for counterclaim defendants on Susquehanna's misappropriation of trade secrets claim, as Susquehanna had failed to meet its burden of proving the existence of a protected trade secret. In short, the Dow Fair Value concept, formula, and spreadsheet were too widely known and too easily ascertainable to constitute protected trade secrets...
Salesman Fired for Not Signing Confidentiality Agreement : jury returned a unanimous verdict on countersuit, awarding $3,911,552.66.
Posted on June 27, 2008Montrenes Financial sought unspecified damages for the violation of its trade secrets. In 2004, plaintiff Montrenes Financial Services, a credit card processing sales company, claimed that four of its salespersons, Calvin Lim, Jerry Vigil, Kirk Moore and Michael Littell, intended to set up a competing business and that Montrenes Financial's way of doing business was proprietary...
Causes of Action Relating to Misuse of Confidential Information
Posted on June 22, 2008Visit our friends at IPFrontline to read the full story... Edward T. Fan The Duty of Confidence A duty of confidence arises when a person acquires knowledge of confidential information, including trade secrets, under circumstances in which the person has notice or agreed that the information is confidential...
U.S. v. Williams : conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets.
Posted on June 22, 2008Background: Defendants were convicted in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Nos. 06-00313-CR-3-1 and 06- 00313-CR-1-1, J. Owen Forrester, J., of conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets. Defendants appealed. Holdings: The Court of Appeals held that: (1) limitation of cross-examination of government's witness did not violate defendant's Sixth Amendment cross-examination rights; (2) imposition of 96-month sentence was not unreasonable; and (3) imposition of 60-Month sentence on codefendant was not unreasonable...
Injunction denied in insulin meter trade secrets case
Posted on June 22, 2008Ropes & Gray LLP Bradford Badke, Sona De, Matt Traupman, Moriah Agovino, and Julie Cadatal Ropes & Gray team has obtained a victory for client Nova Biomedical Corporation in a suit brought by rival Medtronic MiniMed, Inc. alleging misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition and several other related claims...
U.S. Patent Reforms Might Force Firms to Rely on Trade Secrets
Posted on June 22, 20086/23/08 BIOWORLD Volume 19; Issue 121 Nuala Moran, BioWorld Today Correspondent SAN DIEGO - Recent Supreme Court rulings and reform at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), coupled with activity in the World Health Organization and the World Trade Organization, are weakening patents and tipping the scales toward keeping innovation in biotech as trade secrets rather than risking patent disclosure...
AMERICAN FAMILY MUTUAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Plaintiff-Appellee v. ROTH et al
Posted on June 20, 2008886 N.E.2d 1149 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 2008) An insurer that sued two of its former agents for breach of contract and tortious interference, arising out of agents' solicitation of former customers after termination of the agency using confidential information extracted from insurer's computers, filed declaratory judgment action seeking to establish whether it had a duty to defend agents pursuant to personal and advertising injury coverage in a businessowners liability policy...
GOSSIP BLOGS DELIVER THE DIRT AND TRADE SECRETS
Posted on June 20, 2008Leigh Jones Many of the nation's most renowned law firms have felt the public relations wallop delivered by law gossip blogs, those online tabloids that can turn an interoffice memo into a virtual billboard of bad news for partners or associates. Whether the topic is layoffs or love affairs, it seems no subject is too edgy for sites such as Above the Law, Greedy Associates, AutoAdmit and a few others that dig up the legal profession's dirt...
Jury Verdict : National Oilwell Vargo, LP v. A&B Bolt & Supply Inc. et al
Posted on June 20, 2008NOV initially sought $33 million for misappropriated trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty and tortious interference with a confidentiality agreement. The plaintiff also sought punitive damages and attorney fees. Plaintiff National Oilwell Vargo, LP claimed that A&B Bolt & Supply Inc...
Salesman gets 2 years for industrial spying
Posted on June 19, 2008John Coté, Chronicle Staff Writer A former Chinese citizen living in Cupertino was sentenced Wednesday to two years in federal prison for stealing military software from a Silicon Valley defense contractor and trying to sell it to the Chinese military, prosecutors said...
Chinese engineer sentenced for economic espionage
Posted on June 18, 2008Jordan RobertsonAssociated PressSAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — An engineer who admitted he tried to sell fighter-pilot training software to the Chinese Navy has been sentenced to 24 months in federal prison.Forty-four-year-old Xiaodong Sheldon Meng is the first person sentenced on the rare charge of committing economic espionage against the U...
Second Round of Sanctions May Cost Motorola
Posted on June 17, 2008Jordana MishoryDaily Business ReviewJune 17, 2008In 2007, the company was hit with nearly $23 million in sanctions for willfully violating a court order after a trial ended in 2006 with a deadlocked jury.A Broward Circuit judge has ruled Motorola could be forced to pay more money in a second round of sanctions to a defunct company suing in a $10 billion trade secrets case...
Subpoenas Seeking E-Mails Meet Resistance
Posted on June 17, 2008Tresa BaldasCivil litigants are increasingly trying to get their hands on e-mails to prove their cases, but Internet service providers are starting to challenge their subpoenas -- and courts are starting to rule in their favor.The range of litigants seeking e-mail content include divorcing couples, defamation victims and those involved in trade secrets disputes, say Internet and data-protection attorneys...
Inside the Insider
Posted on June 17, 2008Carlo Minassian, Founder & CEO, Earthwave Three Coca-Cola employees were charged with stealing confidential information and samples of a new drink in hope of selling them to competitor PepsiCo Inc. Pepsi reported the incident and worked with Coca-Cola and authorities to investigate it...
Travelling professionals leak calls and documents
Posted on June 17, 2008Antony SavvasMore than two-thirds of Britons travelling on business have eavesdropped on someone else's confidential business conversation, and more than a third have caught sight of sensitive documents or information on laptops, according to a survey commissioned by flexible wokplace provider Regus...
From the INTA list : Stolen TM Case
Posted on June 16, 2008Party A comes up with business idea, creates some samples, and meets with Party B for financing. Well, as you know, ownership of a pending ITU is not a basis for a demand against another party. In addition, if A's talks with B were circumstances giving rise to a duty of confidentiality (which they probably were, even if not memorialized in a written NDA), A could have a misappropriation of trade secret action against B...
Brokers feel mobility is still threatened
Posted on June 16, 2008Dan JamiesonDespite continued efforts to curtail litigation when brokers change firms, departing reps are still being sued, and some say that recent developments suggest the harassment won't stop anytime soon.A recruitment protocol signed by the major brokerage firms in 2004, which let departing brokers take limited customer contact information, isn't always being honored, according to some attorneys familiar with the situation...
Update on Trade Secret Law
Posted on June 14, 2008James Pooley I. Introduction Despite the widespread adoption of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, trade secret principles continue to develop primarily through the common law. It is this reliance on a few broadly stated rules, whether from the Uniform Act or from the Restatement (of Torts or, since 1995, of Unfair Competition), that distinguishes trade secret law from the other three main forms of intellectual property, each of which is based on a federal statute...
Commentary: Patent or trade secret? Changing times call for re-evaluation of IP strategies.
Posted on June 14, 2008Michigan Lawyers Weekly Kelly Burris Recent events have caused drastic changes in the legal landscape for patents, with yet additional threats looming. First, a United States Supreme Court ruling in April 2007 (KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc...
Under California law, the statute of limitations begins to run on a trade secret misappropriation claim when plaintiff has any reason to suspect that a third party knows they have a trade secret in their possession
Posted on June 13, 2008Cypress Semiconductor Corp. v. Superior Court of Santa Clara County (Cal Rptr 3d 2008)
Internet: Summary judgment was barred for claim of misappropriation of trade secrets regarding voice over internet protocol (VoIP).
Posted on June 13, 2008Covad Communications Co. v. Revonet, Inc. (D.D.C.) Summary judgment was precluded in a communications company's suit claiming breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, and conversion of customer lead information, pursuant to contracts with a customer lead generation services provider...
YADKIN VALLEY BANK AND TRUST COMPANY : employer's allegations were insufficient to state a claim for misappropriation of trade secrets.
Posted on June 13, 2008Background: Former employees brought separate actions against employer, alleging breach of contract and violation of the Wage and Hour Act, and sought declaratory judgment that they were not bound by non-competition agreement. Employer counterclaimed for breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, and unfair competition...
Through research, advocacy,
Posted on June 11, 2008Through research, advocacy, and public education,the FAS Project on Government Secrecy works to challenge excessive government secrecy and to promote public oversight. Go to their Library for a collection of juicy files and links.
DOD Report: Changes in Espionage by Americans: 1947-2007
Posted on June 09, 2008Technical Report 08-05 March 2008 - Changes in Espionage by Americans: 1947-2007, by Katherine L. Herbig, Northrop Grumman Technical Services. Released By ? James A. Riedel [via FAS] "Since 1987, the Defense Personnel Security Research Center (PERSEREC) has maintained a database on espionage by American citizens based largely on open sources, and has collected files on each of the 173 individuals in the database...
DOJ's Economic-Spy Strategy Emerges
Posted on June 09, 2008The Recorder Federal prosecutors' tactics are under fire as defendants in one Silicon Valley economic espionage case are used against defendants in another. For the government to succeed in its apparent strategy of trading sentencing leniency for one pair of defendants in order to help convict another pair on higher-profile charges, they'll have to first persuade Judge James Ware to turn aside defense challenges to the FBI's tactics, which were aired in his courtroom last week.
He said he said, not enough to prove computer fraud and trade secret misappropriation
Posted on June 09, 2008Seyfarth Shaw LLP W. Scott Krol The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently upheld summary judgment holding that a former employee did not violate the Virginia Computer Crimes Act (?VCCA?) when the former company could not prove that they were unaware of employees? use of company funds...
Misappropriation of trade secrets : the INNER PEACE MOVEMENT case
Posted on June 09, 2008Background: Estate and two for-profit corporations that had been owned by testator brought action against two non-profit corporations that testator had founded alleging service mark infringement, copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, and conversion...
Decision: Companies should define confidential information for employees
Posted on June 09, 2008Ford GunterA decision by the 113th Judicial District Court in Harris County last month set a precedent that could deter future trade-secret litigation.The court threw out Houston-based National Oilwell Varco LP's multimillion-dollar lawsuit against A&B Valve and Piping Systems LP in which NOV claimed A&B had violated nondisclosure agreements when it hired away four employees, and that those employees had taken trade secrets with them...
Protection of Trade Secrets And Confidential Information
Posted on June 06, 20086/4/08 Mondaq Bus. Briefing Protection of Trade Secrets And Confidential Information Mr Edward Fan Introduction With the rise of the information age and growth of the knowledge economy, managing and protecting information, as well as enforcing against its misuse, have become increasingly critical to business enterprises...
Cal App - For SOL purposes, focus is on plaintiff's suspicions.
Posted on June 06, 2008Four our friends at Jurisnotes.com Cypress Semiconductor v. Silvaco Data Systems (5/30/08) The question here was if a party stole a trade secret and then sold it to a third-party, when did the statute of limitations begin to run on any misappropriation claim that the trade secret owner might have against the third-party...
BEYOND TRADE SECRETS: PROTECTING BUSINESS INFORMATION IN ARKANSAS
Posted on June 06, 200843-SPG Ark. Law. 10 (Spring, 2008) Kevin M. Lemley Information is often a firm's most valuable asset. Arkansas trade secret law has lost much of its strength to effectively protect this valuable information. Recent federal and state laws provide new methods for protecting information stored on computers...
GIA?S BOX OF TRADE SECRETS
Posted on June 06, 2008CHAIM EVEN-ZOHARThis week’s riddle: What do Rapaport and the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) have in common? The obvious answer: they both recently tried their utmost to see how fast they could destroy the remnants of their own reputation...
Clean Technology Intellectual-Property Claims On The Rise
Posted on June 06, 2008Sari KrigerDow Jones Newsletters NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- As clean-technology investment booms, companies are increasingly finding themselves involved in litigation over their intellectual property.Industry experts say concerns over intellectual-property protection for clean- technology companies will grow as the sector develops further and employees move among companies...
Window company sues former subcontractor for starting similar business
Posted on June 05, 2008Chris DickersonWINFIELD - A St. Albans-based company claims a former subcontractor violated agreements when he started a similar business.Hanshaw Enterprises Inc, doing business as Window World of Kanawha, filed the suit May 30 in Putnam Circuit Court against Window Depot USA TriState/WV LLC and Marc Sisser...
NIH could not withhold records under exemption for trade secrets
Posted on June 04, 200843 F.Supp.2d 70 United States District Court, District of Columbia. IN DEFENSE OF ANIMALS, Plaintiff, v. NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH and U...
Calif. Court Resets Trade Secrets Clock
Posted on June 04, 2008The Recorder A California appellate court has clarified when the clock starts ticking for trade secret holders to sue third parties who have acquired their stolen intellectual property. Three years after filing a suit over stolen computer source code, the subsequently victorious plaintiff also sued the defendant's customers for having acquired the proprietary information...
Whodunit? United States IT officials can effectively prevent security breaches
Posted on June 03, 2008Jennifer McAdams United States IT officials can effectively prevent security breaches by customizing security plans for individual employees in every area of their organization. Bruce Schneier, a security expert in Mountain View, California, says that IT officials at all times need to gauge the company's level of risk and develop airtight audit trails...
Appeals court ruling may curb trade secret litigation
Posted on June 03, 2008Frank Byrt Financial WeekJune 3, 2008 A California Court of Appeals ruling late last week could have a far-reaching impact on companies accused of stealing trade secrets.The ruling was in favor of an appeal of a lower court’s ruling by Cypress Semiconductor of San Jose, California...
Calif. Court Resets Trade Secrets Clock
Posted on June 03, 2008Zusha ElinsonThe RecorderJune 3, 2008A California appellate court has clarified when the clock starts ticking for trade secret holders to sue third parties who have acquired their stolen intellectual property.Three years after filing a suit over stolen computer source code, the subsequently victorious plaintiff also sued the defendant's customers for having acquired the proprietary information...
Loose lips sink ships
Posted on June 02, 2008Julianne DowlingLawyers are reporting a surge in cases relating to trade secrets, intellectual property (IP) and restraint of trade.But employment laws - by and large - remain on the side of the departing employee, experts say.According to Rob McInnes, principal of Spruson & Ferguson Lawyers, there has been a rise in queries about what is a reasonable restraint of trade in employment and trade secret misappropriation by former employees...
HOT COMPETITION FUELS TRADE SECRET SUITS: LABOR LAWYERS SAY LITIGATION BUBBLING UP AS OIL COMPANIES CLAIM TOP TALENT IS UNLAWFULLY BEING SWIPED BY RIVALS
Posted on May 29, 20085/20/2008 Daily Rep. (Fulton County) 4 Tresa Baldas A BOOMING OIL INDUSTRY is fueling trade secrets litigation within the domestic energy industry, where companies are increasingly suing one another for raiding each other's work force. Labor and employment attorneys say that higher gas prices are leading to hotter competition among domestic gas and oil companies, which are aggressively going after each other's top talent...
Topps Co. Inc. v. Cadbury
Posted on May 29, 20085/20/2008 N.Y.L.J. 28, (col. 1), May 20, 2008 Plaintiff appeals from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Haight, J.), entered November 8, 2006, dismissing claims for breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets...
NY FOIA : ample evidence supported determination that trade secret exemption was properly applied to petitioner's request
Posted on May 29, 2008856 N.Y.S.2d 281, 2008 N.Y. Slip Op. 03380 Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Department, New York In the Matter of the CITY OF SCHENECTADY, Appellant, v. James J. O'KEEFFE, as Records Appeals Officer of the New York State Board of Real Property Services, et al...
Chiquita files suit against 7
Posted on May 27, 2008Dawn Withers Chiquita Brands International Inc. is suing seven of its former Fresh Express executives, alleging they breached their confidentiality agreements. In a 20-page complaint filed last month in Ohio, where Chiquita is based, the company accuses the executives of using trade secrets for the benefit of Salinas-based NewStar Foods LLC and trying to recruit Fresh Express's employees and customers to NewStar...
2nd Cir - Extrinsic evidence did not resolve ambiguities over rights.
Posted on May 23, 2008The Topps Co., Inc. v. Cadbury Stani S.A.I.C. (5/15/08) The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Cadbury and the 2nd Circuit reversed and remanded. In the view of the 2nd Circuit, this case was not ripe for summary judgment. The 1980 license agreement was ambiguous and the extrinsic evidence did not resolve the ambiguities over Cadbury's rights for purposes of its summary judgment motion...
ENERGY BOOM FUELS TRADE SECRETS SUITS
Posted on May 23, 2008The Recorder Vol. 132, No. 97 May 19, 2008 Tresa Baldas The National Law Journal A booming oil industry is fueling trade secrets litigation within the domestic energy industry, where companies are increasingly suing one another for raiding each other's work force...
California's version of Uniform Trade Secrets Act permits injunctive relief
Posted on May 23, 2008Background: Hospital brought claim against medical group for anticipatory breach of contract, relating to letter of intent giving hospital an option to purchase rural health clinics from medical group. Medical group cross-complained for injunction to protect confidential information it disclosed to hospital during due diligence period...
ND Cal - Plaintiff's claims did not arise under patent la
Posted on May 23, 2008Altavion, Inc. v. Konica-Minolta Systems Lab., Inc. (5/7/08) The court granted Altavion's motion to remand, ultimately concluding that the claims at issue did not arise under federal patent law. Each of Altavion's claims was supported by a theory that did not require as a necessary element resolution of a substantial question of federal patent law...
Manufacturer of high-tech biochemical filtering devices used in various manufacturing and other processes, fired a production supervisor, Yong "Jake" Zhang, for allegedly videotaping the company's trade secrets and confidential manufacturing processes.
Posted on May 16, 2008The parties settled for $50,000 prior to trial. The settlement did not include an admission of guilt, as Zhang still maintains he did nothing wrong. Plaintiff's counsel reported that all of the settlement proceeds were donated to charity. Synder, Inc...
11th Circuit briefly examined this principle in affirming a district court?s grant of dismissal and concluded that the Complaint must set forth facts from which the court could infer that any misappropriation of trade secrets was knowing
Posted on May 16, 2008Southern Nuclear Operating Co, Inc v Electronic Data Systems Corp Seyfarth Shaw LLP Jason Jarvis Georgia’s Trade Secrets Act prohibits knowing misappropriation of trade secrets. See Ga. Code Ann. § 10-1-761. In a recent decision, the Eleventh Circuit briefly examined this principle in affirming a district court’s grant of dismissal and concluded that the Complaint must set forth facts from which the court could infer that any misappropriation of trade secrets was knowing...
Tex App - Information in rental logs could be trade secrets.
Posted on May 16, 2008SP Midtown, Ltd. v. Urban Storage, L.P. (Tex App 5/8/08) SP sued Urban and The Jenkins Organization, Inc. (collectively "Urban") for misappropriation of trade secrets and related claims. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Urban and the appellate court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded in part...
The brinjal battles
Posted on May 16, 2008Rahul JayaramIt’s an unlikely candidate for controversy, but the lowly brinjal is at the heart of a battle. The issues at stake: whether agricultural and pharmaceutical companies should share classified data (read: trade secrets) with the government and independent watchdogs...
Man Gave Military Secrets To China
Posted on May 14, 2008Jerry Markon A New Orleans businessman pleaded guilty to espionage yesterday, admitting that he gave the Chinese government highly sensitive military information he obtained from a former Defense Department official. Tai Shen Kuo, 58, said in court papers that he plied the official with gifts, cash and dinners to secure classified projections of U...
Craigslist counter-sues eBay for 'stealing corporate trade secrets'
Posted on May 14, 2008James Quinn Craigslist, the classified advertising website, has accused eBay of stealing corporate trade secrets, in a counter-lawsuit that comes just three weeks after the online auction giant accused it of diluting its minority stake in the business...
Fact issues whether appropriation of trade secrets had occurred precluded summary judgement
Posted on May 11, 2008United States District Court, D. Connecticut. PANTERRA ENGINEERED PLASTICS, INC., Plaintiff, v. TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM SOLUTIONS, LLC, et al., Defendants. Civil Action No...
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, 2008884 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, 2008From 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, 2008From 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...
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, 2008Michael 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, 2008TERENCE 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, 2008Aparna 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, 2008Recent 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, 2008OLUYINKA 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, 2008Megan 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, 2008977 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, 2008976 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, 2008United 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, 200833 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, 2008By 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, 2008HELEN 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, 2008SLASHDOT "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, 2008Lovells 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, 2008NEJM 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, 2008Trade 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, 2008R. 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...
LAWYER BARRED FROM PRACTICE PENDING PROBE OF MISCONDUCT IN TRADE SECRETS LAWSUIT
Posted on April 24, 20084/17/2008 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, 2008Verdict-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, 2008The 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, 2008By 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, 2008PETE 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, 2008By 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, 2008Scott 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, 2008Free 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...
WISCONSIN CONFIDENTIAL: THE MYSTERY OF THE WISCONSIN SUPREME COURT'S DECISION IN BURBANK GREASE SERVICES V. SOKOLOWSKI AND ITS EFFECT UPON THE UNIFORM TRADE SECRETS ACT, LITIGATION, AND EMPLOYEE MOBILITY
Posted on April 17, 20082007 Wis. L. Rev. 1271 (2008) Michael Ahrens Introduction Corporations are like jugglers. In one hand they must establish a market for their product. In the other hand they have to train and retain a workforce capable of creating and developing the products necessary to maintain their place in that market...
From Maine : KELLY SERVICES, INC. v. Erin E. GREENE
Posted on April 16, 2008535 F.Supp.2d 180 (D. Me 2008) United States District Court, D. Maine. KELLY SERVICES, INC., Plaintiff v. Erin E. GREENE, Defendant. Civil No. 08-23-P-H. Feb. 28, 2008. A former employer, engaged in personnel staffing business, sued former employee, claiming breach of non-compete and nondisclosure provisions of employment contract, occurring after former employee left to work for alleged competitor...
SD Fla - Tort claims posed substantial question of federal patent law.
Posted on April 15, 2008Thanks to our friends from JurisNotes.com Clearplay, Inc. v. Nissim Corp. (4/2/08) Clearplay makes DVD players and related products. In 2001, Clearplay began marketing a filtering program and membership service allowing customers to filter their DVD movies by skipping or muting objectionable content...
SAP loses bid to keep 'highly confidential' info from Oracle
Posted on April 10, 2008Chris Kanaracus A court-appointed official in California has shot down SAP AG's request that Oracle's general counsel be denied access to "highly confidential" information related to Oracle's ongoing lawsuit against SAP and its subsidiary, TomorrowNow, rejecting SAP's contention that sensitive and strategic information could find its way into the hands of Oracle's top executives...
TAKING SECRETS BACK TO ASIA?
Posted on April 10, 20083/2008 IP Law & Business 18 Zusha Elinson Silicon Valley has always been a hot bed of trade secrets suits. But there's a new twist in an ongoing dispute between Applied Materials, Inc., the huge Santa Clara-based maker of semiconductor equipment, and a company started by its former employees: the former employees' business is in China...
Microsoft Releases 14,000 Pages Of Trade Secrets
Posted on April 10, 20084/8/08 CommWeb News (Pg. Unavail. Online) Microsoft continued to release formerly closely held application protocol documentation Tuesday, posting 14,000 pages of information for Microsoft Office 2007, SharePoint Server 2007, and Exchange Server 2007 at MSDN, a Web site for developers...
SYMPOSIUM ON THE TOPIC OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Posted on April 10, 2008Texas Wesleyan University School of Law Friday, October 10, 2008 Texas Wesleyan University School of Law is pleased to host a symposium on the topic of Intellectual Property and Indigenous Peoples, on Friday, October 10, 2008. The purpose of this symposium is to examine intellectual property concepts - copyrights, trademark rights, patent rights, and trade secrets - as applied to the cultural heritage, art, and artifact of indigenous peoples...
COMPANY FINDS TRADE-SECRET CHARGES CAN CUT BOTH WAYS
Posted on April 07, 2008The Recorder, Vol. 132, No. 62 (March 31, 2008) By Dan Levine Executives at Broadcom Corp. may rue the day they sicced the FBI on engineer Tien Shiah. A Santa Ana federal judge acquitted Shiah of stealing trade secrets to benefit Santa Clara-based Marvell Semiconductor...
Trade Secret Jury Verdict : EMS Gulf Coast, LLC v. Tanner Construction Co. of Texas Inc. et al
Posted on April 07, 2008EMS claimed lost profits of $1,140,000 million and argued that the defendants were also liable for $1,286,000 that EMS allegedly paid for the CenterPoint-Freebird agreement. In November 2006, Freebird Gas Storage awarded a contract to pipeline servicing company Tanner Construction Co...
Hogging the hedge? 'Bulldog's' 13f theory may not be so lucky.
Posted on April 07, 200812 Fordham J. Corp. & Fin. L. 1079 (2008) Edward Pekarek Introduction Two-Thousand-Six was a year in which the opaque investment pools commonly known as ?hedge funds? provided frequent headline-fodder through scandals, congressional testimony, and the collapse of Amaranth Advisors, a nine billion dollar hedge fund implosion that exceeded the financial scope of the Long Term Capital Management Asian currency debacle...
Random Search Stops $600 Million In Trade Secrets Bound For China
Posted on April 07, 2008By Thomas Claburn InformationWeek A former software engineer for a telecommunications company based near Chicago was indicted for allegedly stealing trade secrets worth an estimated $600 million and trying to take the documents to China. The FBI said Wednesday that Hanjuan Jin of Schaumburg, Ill...
Stolen Trade Secrets?: Lawsuit Claims Exec Took $1M Study From Pulte Homes
Posted on April 07, 2008Albuquerque Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX Hollywood's cloak-and-dagger world of industrial espionage and purloined trade secrets isn't typically associated with housing developments. But Pulte Homes claims in a federal lawsuit that a top executive who was being laid off stole a highly confidential, $1 million Albuquerque market study and used it to create a similar report for a major competitor...
Dallas firm Gardere Wynne Sewell announces slate of new partners
Posted on April 02, 2008Tom Wright is a partner in the firm?s Intellectual Property Section. His practice involves both complex intellectual property litigation and counseling. His litigation experience includes patent infringement disputes, copyright infringement actions and cases involving the misappropriation of trade secrets...
Former Pentagon official pleads guilty in China spy case
Posted on April 02, 2008Simon Montlake A former Pentagon official pleaded guilty in court Monday to an espionage charge over the disclosure of secret data to an alleged Chinese agent in the US. Gregg Bergersen said he was unaware that the Taiwan-born businessman was passing the information to China...
Giving Specificity to the Indecent Liberties Statute
Posted on April 02, 2008Keith Gingery Since the school finance cases came out a few years ago, there has been some grumbling from the Wyoming State Legislature as to the activist role taken by the Wyoming Supreme Court in legislating school finance reform from the bench. Some legislators felt that the Wyoming Supreme Court had overstepped its judicial branch role and moved into the arena of legislating...
Trial delayed for engineer charged with stealing trade secrets
Posted on April 02, 2008A judge agreed Monday to postpone for 13 months the trial of a Chinese-American engineer charged with stealing military and aerospace trade secrets on behalf of China. Kenneth Miller, the attorney for 72-year-old Dongfan "Greg" Chung, asked for the delay because he is involved in a lengthy trial, said Assistant U...
Why Don't Inventors Patent?
Posted on April 01, 2008Petra Moser NBER Working Paper No. 13294 Issued in August 2007 This paper argues that the ability to keep innovations secret may be a key determinant of patenting. To test this hypothesis, the paper examines a newly-collected data set of more than 7,000 American and British innovations at four world's fairs between 1851 and 1915...
Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department, New York : no evidence that former employee used any confidential information or trade secrets of former employer
Posted on April 01, 2008852 N.Y.S.2d 510 (2008) Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Fourth Department, New York. RIEDMAN CORPORATION and Brown & Brown, Inc., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Robert D. GALLAGER and Hatch-Leonard/Markin Shaw, Inc., Defendants-Respondents. Feb. 1, 2008...
Court of Appeals of Texas : sequence of the process used by successor company in its water purification system was not a trade secret
Posted on April 01, 2008244 S.W.3d 924 (2008) Court of Appeals of Texas, Dallas. GLOBAL WATER GROUP, INC., Appellant, v. Robert ATCHLEY and Aspen Water, Inc., Appellee. No. 05-06-00709-CV. Feb. 14, 2008. Rehearing Overruled Feb. 14, 2008. Background: Successor water purification company filed lawsuit against former president of predecessor company and such president's new company, asserting claims for breach of shareholder agreement, misappropriation of trade secrets, and conspiracy...
Lumenis adds more pressure on Alma with new claims for misappropriation of trade secrets
Posted on April 01, 2008Medical Industry Week Lumenis adds more pressure on Alma with new claims for misappropriation of trade secrets Lumenis has filed a complaint in the Tel Aviv District Court in Israel against Alma Lasers and its four founders, Ziv Karni, Yoav Avni, Nadav Bayer and Ivgeni Kodritzki, all former employees of Lumenis , claiming misappropriation of Lumenis trade secrets and technology and for the use of such technology in Alma's primary Harmony products, which are sold worldwide...
Can software developed for government still be a trade secret?
Posted on April 01, 2008Sally Albertazzie According to a federal court in Louisiana, software developed exclusively with government funding may lose "trade secret" status even as against third parties, at least if the developer fails to take steps to maintain the secrecy of the source code...
TRADE SECRETS ORDERED DISCLOSED TO POTENTIAL RIVAL DESPITE STIPULATION
Posted on March 27, 20083/24/2008 Conn. L. Trib. 268 A stipulated protective order was modified allowing a plaintiff, disclosed as an expert and seen as a potential competitor of the defendant motorcycle manufacturer, to view the defendant's confidential materials and trade secret information with conditions...
Trade Secret Jury Verdict : Ex-employees of Plastic Bag Maker Started Competing Co.
Posted on March 27, 2008The jury unanimously found in favor of the plaintiff on the claims of breach of fiduciary duty and conspiracy, and awarded $16,457,866 in general damages plus $250,000 in punitive damages against Rabchev and $25,000 in punitive damages against Nakaoka...
HODES v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT : FOIA & Trade Secrets
Posted on March 27, 2008532 F.Supp.2d 108 (2008) United States District Court, District of Columbia. Scott A. HODES, Plaintiff, v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, Defendant. Civil Action No. 07-161 (CKK). Jan. 31, 2008. Background: Requester brought Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) action against Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) seeking information identifying individuals that held mortgage backed securities under Government National Mortgage Association's (Ginnie Mae) mortgage backed securities program...
RECYCLED PAPER GREETINGS, INC. v. DAVIS : Publisher of greeting cards sued commercial artist
Posted on March 27, 2008533 F.Supp.2d 798 (2008) United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division. RECYCLED PAPER GREETINGS, INC., Plaintiff, v. Kathy DAVIS, Defendant. No. 08 C 236. Feb. 1, 2008. Background: Publisher of greeting cards sued commercial artist, claiming breach of contract to provide artwork for cards...
Settling technology disputes out of court better and cheaper
Posted on March 25, 2008Grant Buckler It's a phrase nobody likes to hear, and one that should be used less in the technology sector, say lawyers with experience in arbitration and mediation. These alternative dispute resolution mechanisms are often cheaper and faster than litigation, make it easier to keep disputes confidential, and allow the parties to choose someone who understands technology to help resolve their differences...
NCR In Row with Former Exec Over Trade Secrets
Posted on March 25, 2008Maria Bruno-Britz Blogger Bill Sloat describes a lawsuit Dayton, Ohio-based NCR has filed against a former employee, now at Hewlett-Packard, around trade secrets. NCR maintains that the ex-vice president of the company who left NCR for HP intends to leak information pertaining to the ATM giant's financial services practice and other key areas...