Intellectual Property Law

TXCO sues rival over oil, gas leases

Posted on November 29, 2009
By Vicki Vaughan Express-News TXCO Resources Inc., the oil and gas exploration company that filed for bankruptcy protection May 17, filed a complaint this week against Dallas-based Peregrine Petroleum LLC, claiming the company stole TXCO's trade secrets and engaged in unfair competition by using confidential information...

Photo galleries settle lawsuit over trade secrets

Posted on November 27, 2009
By Steve Green Las Vegas Sun A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit over trade secrets at high-end photo galleries operating in Las Vegas. Peter Lik USA charged in the lawsuit that Scottland, a former Peter Lik employee, had violated his noncompete agreement by soliciting the business of Peter Lik customers on behalf of The Lough Road...

Stash of weapons in car found 'accidentally'

Posted on November 19, 2009
BY 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, 2009
By 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...

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Microsoft, ex-worker settle claims

Posted on November 17, 2009
By 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
Source: 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, 2009
The 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...

Citizen of the People's Republic of China indicted by the U.S. in scheme to steal Trade Secrets

Posted on September 30, 2009
A 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
AP 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, 2009
Marketing 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
BY 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, 2009
BY 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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...

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