Intellectual Property Law

Court of Appeal of Louisiana: MARINE PILE DRIVERS, L.L.C.v. WELCO, INC., et al.

Posted on October 04, 2008
Designer 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, 2008
Owners 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, 2008
By 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, 2008
by 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...

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Contessa Premium Foods Obtains Multi-Million Dollar Jury Verdict Against Thai Union International, Chicken of the Sea, Bryan Rosenberg & Others

Posted on October 02, 2008
LOS 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
Using 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, 2008
By 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, 2008
Secrecy 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, 2008
David 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, 2008
Broward 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, 2008
Niemi 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, 2008
Erika 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, 2008
Giftware 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, 2008
New 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, 2008
Reg 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, 2008
by 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, 2008
By 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, 2008
As 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, 2008
By 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, 2008
SOURCE 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, 2008
The 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, 2008
by 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, 2008
By 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, 2008
Introducing 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, 2008
By 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, 2008
pr-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, 2008
Developing 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, 2008
Trade 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, 2008
The 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...

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