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Intellectual Property Law

Womble Trade Secrets Blog

Womble Carlyle lawyers Press Millen and Todd Sullivan follow trade secrets law.

Post Frequency: 2.7/day

Last Entry: May 17, 2016 at 17:52:00

China Says "Show Us How You Protect That Stuff"

Posted on December 08, 2008
The Associated Press is reporting that the Chinese government is stirring trade tensions with Washington with a plan to require foreign computer security technology to be submitted for government approval, in a move that might require suppliers to disclose business secrets...

IBM Seeks Discovery from Apple - Steve Jobs to Be Deposed?

Posted on December 04, 2008
The IBM/Papermaster lawsuit is getting hot.ComputerWorld is reporting that IBM has asked for information from several unnamed senior officials at Apple as part of the discovery process in the lawsuit to block a former executive from joining Apple, according to court documents made public Monday...

$44,000 Sanction Against Attorney and Client Upheld in California Trade Secrets Case

Posted on December 01, 2008
Law.com is reporting that a California appellate court has upheld a $44,000 sanction against an attorney and her client in a matter where documents filed under seal were inadvertently placed in the public case file and then used by the attorney and client in an attempt to prove that they weren't secret any longer...

Judge Karas: "Inadvertent Disclosure of IBM's Trade Secrets to Apple Is a Risk"

Posted on November 25, 2008
ComputerWorld is reporting that the previously sealed opinion of United States District Court Judge Kenneth Karas has been unsealed and that the opinion and order are predicated on the idea that Mark Papermaster could, without any improper intentions, inevitably or inadvertently disclose IBM's trade secrets concerning semiconductors and microprocessors to Apple...

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Fourth Circuit Affirms Denial of Trade Secrets Preliminary Injunction

Posted on November 25, 2008
Technology Partners, Inc. v. Hart, No. 08-1651 (4th Cir. Nov. 4, 2008), represents an illustrative example of how preliminary injunction practice works in the Fourth Circuit, particularly as it relates to trade secrets claims.The fact pattern is a familiar one: the defendant was a former employee of the plaintiff, TPI, a software development company for healthcare providers, especially radiologists...

Lubrizol Trade Secrets Thief Gets 19 Months

Posted on November 24, 2008
U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver sentenced former Lubrizol employee Dr. Kyung Kim last week to 19 months in prison. We first started following this case in this post: http://wombletradesecrets.blogspot.com/2008/04/lubrizol-trade-secrets-allegedly-stolen...

FBI takes new approach to bust foreign spies on US soil

Posted on November 24, 2008
An interesting report (video and text) from Texas Cable News about the FBI?s new approach to economic espionage. The article starts: ?Residents of a quiet neighborhood in New Orleans learned a spy was living among them in February. That month, the FBI raided the home of Tai Shen Kuo, an intelligence-gatherer for the People?s Republic of China...

Duke Energy Refund Data Claimed to Be Trade Secret - Ohio Supreme Court Considering Matter

Posted on November 20, 2008
Duke Energy sells electricity in Ohio. They sell that electricity to individuals and companies. Some of those companies are BIG users of electricity. As electricity is a regulated utility, rate increases are effected by political pressures. Big companies routinely have help when political pressures are in play...

Indictments Handed Down in Alleged Trade Secret Theft from Lubrizol

Posted on November 18, 2008
William J. Edwards, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, today announced that an Indictment was filed charging Sang Ho Shin, Dong Sik Kim, and Yeon Hee Lee with one count of trade secrets conspiracy, and two counts each of theft of trade secrets...

Judge Mandates $3 Million Bond in IBM v. Papermaster Case

Posted on November 17, 2008
Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 65, a party that obtains a preliminary injunction against another must post a bond with the clerk of court that will protect the enjoined party from damages they might incur if it is later shown that the court's injunction should not have been issued...

Invista Sues DuPont, Rhodia in Delaware Chancery Court for Trade Secrets Theft

Posted on November 14, 2008
Koch Industries Inc.'s Invista unit sued French chemicals maker Rhodia SA in Delaware state court for theft and misappropriation of a chemical process technology used to make a type of resin.The suit comes two weeks after a federal judge tossed a case filed in New York against Rhodia and DuPont Co...

$10 Million Verdict in Utah Trade Secrets Case

Posted on November 11, 2008
From the Deseret News of Salt Lake City, a story concerning a $10 million trade secrets jury verdict in favor of ClearOne Communications Inc., a developer of audio and video conferencing systems. The verdict included $3.5 million in damages and $7 million in exemplary damages...

Ten Battle-Tested Rules for Communicating Well in Hard Times

Posted on November 10, 2008
Okay, so it?s a little off-the-topic. Nevertheless, we thought folks might be interested in this article by our colleague Henry Fawell in our firm?s Strategic Communications Industry Group. It deals with the topic generally, but imagine having to communicate to the media that your company had just suffered a massive trade secrets theft that imperiled the company?s future...

IBM Obtains TRO From Federal Court Ordering Former Employee to Stop Working for Apple

Posted on November 07, 2008
YOU'LL READ IT HERE FIRST - IBM has received an extraordinary TRO from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York ordering former executive employee Mark Papermaster to immediately cease his employment with Apple until further order of the court...

Former Intel Employee Charged With $1 Billion Trade Secrets Theft

Posted on November 07, 2008
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that a former Intel Corp. engineer has been charged with stealing trade secrets worth $1 billion from the chip maker while he worked for rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts alleged this week in a five-count indictment that Biswamohan Pani, 33 years old, illegally downloaded more than a dozen confidential documents from Intel's computer system in June...

Tesla Motors Loses Trade Secrets Suit Against Fisker Automotive

Posted on November 06, 2008
We first reported about the Tesla Motors suit against Fisker Automotive here: http://wombletradesecrets.blogspot.com/2008/04/electric-sports-car-maker-tesla-motors.html. Well, an arbitrator has ruled on the case - and made some aggressive findings critical of Tesla Motors' claims and the lack of support for the the allegations...

IBM Executive Noncompete Agreement at Issue in Departure for Apple

Posted on November 03, 2008
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/images/papermaster2.pdfMark Weintraub has a ComputerWorld blog and has posted a copy of the Papermaster noncompetition clause that is at issue in the brand new IBM/Papermaster case that involves Mr. Papermaster's new employment with Apple...

Federal Judge Dismisses Invista's Trade Secrets Case Against DuPont, Rhodia

Posted on October 31, 2008
Trade secrets claims are generally matters covered by state, not federal, law. State law matters are routinely heard in state court - except when there is a diversity of citizenship between the parties and the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000. In diversity cases, corporations are "citizens" of both their state of incorporation and where their principal place of business is located...

IBM Sues Top Executive to Stop Migration to Apple

Posted on October 31, 2008
IBM is suing one of its top executives, a server guru who is trying to take a job with Apple, where he would be working closely with CEO Steve Jobs.Mark Papermaster, a 26-year veteran of IBM, has knowledge of "significant and highly confidential IBM trade secrets" that would "irreparably harm" the company if he is allowed to work for Apple, IBM alleges in a suit filed in United States District Court in Manhattan on Oct...

Stylish Trade Secrets?

Posted on October 28, 2008
From Women?s Wear Daily, a story concerning federal charges against two former employees of fashion trade show organizer ENK International with conspiracy Monday after the pair allegedly tried to steal confidential business information about retail buyers and trade show guests...

"So Good . . . So Good . . . Cause I Got You!" - The Trade Secrets of the James Brown Estate

Posted on October 24, 2008
Freaky Friday here, folks. We read with interest the claim of the Trustees for the Estate of The Godfather of Soul - James Brown. They claim that releasing tax returns for James Brown will reveal trade secrets of the Estate. Huh?Apparently, a settlement has been reached with the lion's share of Brown's many children and former lovers and spouses...

Did Brett Favre Misappropriate the Packers' Trade Secrets?

Posted on October 23, 2008
Admission #1: one of the authors of this blog grew up in Detroit and suffered miserably while watching the Detroit Lions.Admission #2: long ago, this same author publicly gave up hope on the Detroit Lions but privately watches their games.Admission #3: he continues to be embarrassed by the Detroit Lions...

7 Year Trade Secrets Theft Conviction Reversed by Texas Court of Appeals

Posted on October 23, 2008
The Texas Court of Appeals in the sixth district handed down the opinion Oct. 17, acquitting Frank McClain Jr. of stealing trade secrets from his former Lufkin employer, Didrikson and Associates, and throwing out his seven-year prison sentence. Interestingly, they not only reversed the conviction but have ordered an entry of acquittal in the matter - such that McClain cannot be retried in the matter...

To Catch an Electronic Thief

Posted on October 15, 2008
An interesting article in the Legal Tech Newsletter by Ken Stasiak and Dave Kennedy, two consultants with SecureState LLC, an information security assessment and protection firm, concerning what to do if you think your company has been targeted by someone stealing electronic data...

Tough Economic Climate Puts Companies at Greater Risk of Trade Secret Theft

Posted on October 15, 2008
The attached link yields an interesting online piece from COMPUTERWORLD Security. The piece's angle is that tough times create greater risk of loss of trade secrets. They say:"As it is, one of the biggest threats to corporate data and systems traditionally has come from insiders, who with their privileged access to data and systems, have the potential ability do more accidental or malicious damage than even the outside attacker...

Too Small To Protect Trade Secrets?

Posted on October 08, 2008
InfoWorld has a blog that we read sometimes and this recent blog posting hit a couple of points we've opined about in the past. The blogger didn't identify the company they work for - but they noted that they'd persistently identified trade secret loss as a major risk for the company...

Trade Secrets and the New Financial Landscape?

Posted on October 07, 2008
Suffice it to say that we all know that the world has changed and is changing as a result of the financial meltdown. Just what it means for trade secrets and the issues covered on this blog is anyone's guess at this point.Nevertheless, for your edification, we are linking to a piece prepared by one of our colleagues concerning "What Banks, Financial Institutions, Investors And Service Providers Need To Know About The Emergency Economic Stabilization Provisions of H...

Taiwan Semiconductor Manucturing Company Settles UniRAM Trade Secrets Matters

Posted on October 06, 2008
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has reached a settlement agreement with UniRAM Technology to settle a dispute regarding trade secrets alleged by UniRAM, according to a TSMC filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE). No financial details were disclosed...

Coin Dealers Says Customer Lists and Marketing Strategies are Trade Secrets Stolen By Former Employee

Posted on October 01, 2008
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. Dozens of suits involving coin companies have been filed in the county the last year alone...

Scientist Accused of Illegally Selling Rocket Technology to China

Posted on September 25, 2008
More from the Annals of Chinese Economic Espionage:From the Associated Press and our sister state, the Commonwealth of Virginia, comes a story regarding Shu Quan-Sheng, a scientist who heads a high-tech company in Newport News, who has been indicted on charges of illegally selling rocket technology to China and offering bribes to Chinese officials...

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