Intellectual Property Law

Apple and Psystar finally agree--to keep trade secrets secret

Posted on February 27, 2009

Protecting Your Organization's Innovations

Posted on February 26, 2009
By 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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...

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Finnish Law Backed by Nokia May Deter Whistleblowers

Posted on February 25, 2009
By 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
NovaBay 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
BY 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
PRWEB 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
The 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
WASHINGTON (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, 2009
A 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, 2009
A 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, 2009
A 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, 2009
Verdict-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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
Source: 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...

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