Intellectual Property Law

Tekmira Sues Alnylam Seeking Over $1 Billion As Damages For Trade Secret Theft Allegations

Posted on March 18, 2011
Xconomy is reporting that Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, the Vancouver, BC-based maker of technology to deliver RNA interference therapies, has filed a lawsuit against Cambridge, MA-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals seeking damages of more than $1 billion because of what Tekmira?s CEO calls ?relentless and egregious? misappropriation of trade secrets...

"Never Mind . . . . " Renault Exonerates Three Accused, and Terminated, Employees Finding No Evidence of Trade Secret Misappropriation

Posted on March 17, 2011
Gilda Radner used to have a character named "Emily Litella" who used to go on and on and then realize she was way off base. Here's an example: "What is all this fuss I hear about the Supreme Court decision on a "deaf" penalty? It's terrible! Deaf people have enough problems as it is!"The news anchor interrupts Litella to point out her error: "That's death, Ms...

Prosecutors Seeking Ten Year Sentence in Goldman Sachs Trade Secret Theft Case

Posted on March 15, 2011
We've reported about this case repeatedly: http://wombletradesecrets.blogspot.com/2010/12/lesson-learned-from-goldman-sachs-trade.html.Having sucessfully prosecuted and obtained a conviction against Sergey Aleynikov, federal prosecutors are reportedly asking that he be sentenced to ten years in prison...

Connecticut Court Says Law Firm's Former Associate Didn't Steal Trade Secrets

Posted on March 14, 2011
Here's a relatively new one - the Connecticut Law Tribune is reporting that claims filed by the estate of a deceased attorney against his former associate were dismissed by the Connecticut trial court. David Poirot was hired by Stephen F. Meo shortly after graduating from the University of Connecticut School of Law...

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Seattle's Best Says Borders' Store Closings Exposes Its Trade Secrets to Potential Loss

Posted on March 10, 2011
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Starbucks Corp.?s Seattle?s Best Coffee unit said Borders Group Inc.?s plans to reject store leases and abandon property could damage the java seller?s brand name and expose its trade secrets.Seattle?s Best lodged a protest to the book retailer?s move to close about 200 stores with the U...

Renault's Response in Alleged Trade Secret Theft Case Deemed Hasty by Wall Street Journal

Posted on March 09, 2011
We blogged about this case upon the reports of the suspension of three key employees at Renault: http://wombletradesecrets.blogspot.com/2011/01/renault-suspends-three-executives-in.html. They've since been dismissed by Renault.The Wall Street Journal yesterday had a front-page piece that was fascinating in its reporting and coverage of the post-allegation developments in this Renault matter...

Madoff Client Lists and Holdings Create New Trade Secrets Battle Between Banks and Madoff Trustee Irving Picard

Posted on March 07, 2011
Bloomberg is reporting that a new spat is generating over Madoff Trustee Irving Picard's proposal to a federal judge that would permit the Trustee to disclose and share a large amount of information the banks consider trade secret protected. Apparently the Trustee and the banks have executed confidentiality agreements that prohibit the Trustee from using information shared with his office in certain ways - and the banks now claim that he wants the Court to modify those agreements over the objections of the banks...

It's An Ill Wind in Great Britain: Goldenfry Foods Wins Large Trade Secrets Verdict Against Frontier Foods

Posted on March 02, 2011
FoodManufacture.co.uk is reporting that Goldenfry Foods has a won a legal judgement against three former employees who misused trade secrets to establish a breakaway company and appropriate a £5m supermarket contract for gravy granules. The three co-defendents and the company they owned, Frontier Foods, faced a multi-million pound bill for legal costs and damages as a result of this action, after an initial liability judgement in mid January 2011...

Former Societe Generale Trader Gets Three Years For Trade Secret Theft

Posted on March 01, 2011
Bloomberg is reporting that former Societe Generale SA trader Samarth Agrawal was sentenced to three years in prison for stealing the bank?s high-speed trading software.A federal jury in Manhattan in November found Agrawal, 27, guilty of theft of trade secrets and of transporting stolen property in interstate commerce after a two-week trial...

WSJ Reports that Prosecutors Are Seeking 6-8 Years for Convicted SocGen Trade Secret Thief

Posted on February 28, 2011
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a former Societe Generale SA trader should serve as much as eight years and a month in prison after he was convicted last year of stealing the French bank's proprietary code for its high-frequency-trading business, prosecutors said...

French Company SA Neurtelec Awarded $5.8 Million Trade Secrets Jury Verdict Against Boulder, Colorado's Otologics

Posted on February 25, 2011
The Denver Post is reporting that a Denver jury Wednesday awarded $5.9 million to a French company that sued a Boulder firm for misappropriating trade secrets as well as several key employees who could help produce a highly specialized hearing implant for the deaf...

Federal Court Issues Injunction Against Language Services Associates and Employees

Posted on February 24, 2011
redOrbit is carrying a piece on a federal court injunction allegedly issued on February 15th in favor of Language Line Services and against against Language Services Associates LLC (LSA), and William Schwartz and Patrick Curtin - two former employees of Language Line Services who are accused of conspiring to take trade secrets and confidential information from their former employer to their new employer...

Huawei Wins Partial Injunction in Motorola Case

Posted on February 23, 2011
Reuters is reporting that China's Huawei Technologies Co on Tuesday won a federal court order barring Motorola Solutions Inc from disclosing a variety of confidential Huawei information to rival Nokia Siemens Networks.But Motorola Solutions said it was pleased that the judge denied Huawei's request to block its $1...

South Carolina Federal Court Takes Narrow View of Computer Fraud & Abuse Act

Posted on February 23, 2011
In WEC Carolina Energy Solutions, LLC v. Miller, 2011 WL 379458 (D.S.C. Feb. 3, 2011), South Carolina federal judge Cameron McGowan Currie came down on the side of a narrow view of employee liability under the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act.The fact pattern was a classic one: employees of plaintiff who were working with a competitor company accessed the plaintiff-employer?s confidential computer information and then emailed it outside of the company to the competitor...

TechForward Claims Best Buy Misappropriated Its Trade Secrets

Posted on February 22, 2011
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune is reporting that a California company is accusing Best Buy Co. Inc. of stealing trade secrets for its new, much-ballyhooed buyback program introduced to the nation earlier this month by Justin Bieber and Ozzy Osbourne.TechForward Inc...

Former Bristol-Myers-Squibb Employee Sentenced to One Year, Deportation

Posted on February 21, 2011
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that 30-year-old Shalin Jhaveri sobbed in court Thursday as he apologized for betraying the trust of his former employer and his family. The federal judge assigned to the case sentenced him to one-year in prison but he is reportedly being released due to his having already served the sentence in upstate New York...

Green Trade Secrets Verdict

Posted on February 17, 2011
From the Springfield (Mass.) Republican, a big verdict story concerning secrets for manufacturing a low-shrink encapsulant for solar panels.Connecticut-based Specialized Technology Resources Inc. sued its former employee, James Galica, and his new employer, JPS Elastometrics Corp...

David Almeling's O'Melveny Team Does It Again - New Law Review Article on State-Filed Trade Secrets Litigation

Posted on February 16, 2011
We've told you before - we really like David Almeling at the San Francisco office of O'Melveny & Myers. He and a team of his colleagues wrote an informative and interesting piece in the March 2010 Gonzaga Law Review called "A Statistical Analysis of Trade Secret Litigation in Federal Courts...

UConn Argues Donor List is University Trade Secret

Posted on February 15, 2011
Bloomberg BusinessWeek is reporting that a Connecticut appeals court is considering whether the University of Connecticut's lists of library supporters, theater guests and sports season ticket holders should be public information.Open-records experts say it's the first time that Connecticut courts are deciding whether a public entity can claim some of its records are trade secrets, even if they were created at public expense...

Coca-Cola Trade Secrets ? Has the Granddaddy of Them All Been Breached?

Posted on February 14, 2011
An interesting story from the UK?s Daily Mail, reporting that the website for radio?s This American Life, purports to have a photo showing the original formula for Coke, perhaps the world?s best-known example of a trade secret. The photo was supposedly unearthed from 1979 newspaper story...

Spies At Work Piece in Bloomberg

Posted on February 11, 2011
We've linked you to yesterday's opinion piece by Joel Brenner, an attorney at Cooley, LLP and former head of U.S. counterintelligence under the Director of National Intelligence and inspector general at the National Security Agency. It makes good points...

Intellectual Property Czar Releases 2010 Annual Report

Posted on February 10, 2011
We've attached above the recently released 85-page report prepared by President Obama's "intellectual-property czar," a post he created just after he took office. We're still reading the report but note that it identifies China as a continuing concern in trade secret theft issues, stating "Over the last six months, we have heard repeated concerns about enforcement of patents and trade secrets, particularly in China," the report read...

Former Corning Consultant Gets 30 Month Prison Sentence for Trade Secrets Theft Conspiracy

Posted on February 09, 2011
BusinessWeek is reporting that a California consultant has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison by U.S. District Court Judge Charles J. Siragusa for conspiring to steal highly valuable flat-panel-glass blueprints from Corning Inc. and turn them over to a rival business in Taiwan...

Former Dow Scientist Convicted of Trade Secret Theft from Dow and Perjury

Posted on February 08, 2011
You'll recall we've blogged about this case before: http://wombletradesecrets.blogspot.com/2011/01/trial-of-chinese-man-accused-of-polymer.html. Well, a federal jury in Baton Rouge, Louisiana has convicted of stealing trade secrets and selling them to companies in China...

The Intersection of Trade Secrets Law and Insider Trading Law

Posted on February 04, 2011
Bloomberg is reporting that James Fleishman, a former Primary Global Research LLC sales manager, was indicted on insider trading charges and also accused in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit along with five other people of tipping investors including hedge funds...

Volcano Corp. and St. Jude Medical Get Split Verdict - No Trade Secret Misappropriation But Volcano Did Engage in Unfair Trade Practices

Posted on February 01, 2011
The Sacramento Bee and many other news organizations are reporting that a Massachusetts judge has ordered medical equipment maker Volcano Corp. to pay $400,000 in damages, plus attorneys' fees, to a competitor that alleged unfair competition and breach of contract...

Eaton Aerospace, Having Had IT'S Claims Dismissed For Litigation Misconduct, Seeks Recusal of All Judges From Hinds County, Mississippi - (But Fails)

Posted on January 31, 2011
You'll recall this procedurally involved case from Mississippi - the case brought by Eaton Aerospace against some former employees for allegedly stealing trade secrets of their former employer and converting them for competitive use. We've covered this case extensively, including the $1...

Nokia Says "No Interest in Huawei's Trade Secrets"

Posted on January 28, 2011
We did a post earlier this week (http://wombletradesecrets.blogspot.com/2011/01/shoe-meets-other-foot-chinese-firm.html) regarding Huawei's lawsuit filed in federal court in Illinois charging Motorola with attempting to hand over Huawei's technology Nokia Siemens, which announced plans last year to buy Motorola's networking equipment business for $1...

Compensated Nuts? Guitar Nut Case Results in Unfair Competition Ruling Under California Law

Posted on January 27, 2011
Guitars have a slotted "nut" that the strings go through to reach the tuners. Ernie Ball had a patent on their nut, which was "compensated" to aid in tuning the instrument. They alleged, among other things, that Earvana was infringing on that patent AND they alleged that Earvana had engaged in common law unfair competition...

Gundlach's DoubleLine Wins First Trade Secret Battle With Former Firm TCW Group

Posted on January 26, 2011
You might recall we covered this nasty, brutish but not short battle back in early 2010: http://wombletradesecrets.blogspot.com/2010/01/money-management-firm-says-former.html. TCW Group accused its former golden boy Jeffrey Gundlach of stealing employees and trade secrets regarding clients but leaving a cache of porn and drugs in his office...

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