Intellectual Property Law

5 face charges in new indictment

Posted on January 30, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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...

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Alabama judge upholds $192M verdict in property suit

Posted on January 26, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
A 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, 2009
BUSINESSWIRE 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
The 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
Pammy 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, 2009
Whole 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
Lanny 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By: 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
By 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, 2009
Metropolitan 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, 2009
Background: 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, 2009
Patentees 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, 2009
By 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...

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