Intellectual Property Law

Shoe Meets Other Foot: Chinese Firm Huawei Sues Motorola Alleging Trade Secret Theft

Posted on January 25, 2011
The Washington Post is reporting that Chinese tech giant Huawei has filed a federal civil action against Motorola in Chicago alleging trade secret misappropriation against the latter company.The case concerns the announcement last year that Motorola was going to sell its main mobile telecommunications unit to Nokia Siemens Networks...

Much Litigated FOIA Case Results in Federal District Court Declaration 50 Year Old Airplane Designs Aren't Trade Secrets

Posted on January 24, 2011
Public Citizen is reporting that a federal district court in Washington, D.C. has ruled that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) cannot block an airplane enthusiast?s request for the design specifications of an antique aircraft because the information is neither secret nor commercially valuable...

Trial of Chinese Man Accused of Polymer Trade Secrets Theft from Dow

Posted on January 23, 2011
Right on the heels of the visit of China?s president to the U.S. comes another story of Chinese trade secrets theft and commercial espionage.From the Baton Rouge (LA) Advocate, a story about opening statements in the criminal trial of Wen Chyu Liu, a/k/a David Liou, accused of stealing trade secrets from his former employer, Dow Chemical...

Steelers' Secret Trick Play May Have Been Shared With Jets By ESPN Reporter

Posted on January 21, 2011
Gather Inc. has an interesting piece suggesting that Bob Holtzman, an ESPN reporter, may have been accused by Pittsburgh Steelers Coach Mike Tomlin of inappropriately sharing with the New York Jets a trick play he learned about in private discussions with Tomlin...

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China Oriented Espionage Getting Closer Scrutiny

Posted on January 20, 2011
As you might guess, we don't sponsor all of the views of opinion pieces and trade secrets stories that we link or introduce to our readers. Nonetheless, we want you to read what ALL sides are saying in order to be able to judge for yourselves what is useful and what might not be...

Second Trial Begins in Bratz Doll Case: Opening Statements

Posted on January 19, 2011
Opening statements were made today in a Santa Ana, California federal courtroom for a trial that U.S. District Judge David Carter has said may take as long as four months. Mattel is seeking damages for copyright infringement and trade-secret theft from closely held MGA, which in turn will ask the jury to hold Mattel liable for unfair competition and stealing its trade secrets...

Japan Considers Confidentiality Shields for Trade Secrets Implicated in Prosecutions

Posted on January 18, 2011
This just in from the Daily Yomiuri Online: Japan is considering a law that will shield trade secrets that are at issue in criminal prosecutions traditionally open to the public. The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry will submit a bill to revise the Unfair Competition Prevention Law during the next ordinary session of the Diet, a ministry official said...

Accused Renault Execs Say "Wrongly J'Accused!"

Posted on January 13, 2011
France24 is reporting that the three Renault executives accused of leaking company secrets to Chinese outsiders have denied any wrongdoing. French daily 'Le Figaro' claims a Chinese firm paid money into two bank accounts in Switzerland and Liechtenstein that had been opened by two of the car manufacturer's employees...

Renault Suspends Three Executives in China, Claiming They Passed Secrets to the Chinese

Posted on January 11, 2011
Bloomberg is reporting that Renault believes it has fallen victim to an ?organized, international ring? that passed on vehicle designs and commercial data, Chief Operating Officer Patrick Pelata said in an interview published Jan. 9 in Le Monde and confirmed by the company...

Ambulatory Trade Secrets

Posted on January 10, 2011
The Southeastern Texas Record is reporting that a new lawsuit has been filed by one South Texas ambulance provider against another.Court filings allege Cindy Bridges managed Southeast Texas EMS for eight years and was trusted with all the company's trade secrets, including medical providers, pricing information and marketing strategies...

Taiwanese Trade Secrets Ruling Irritates MediaTek

Posted on January 06, 2011
According to Focus Taiwan, Taiwan-based IC designer MediaTek Inc. said Wednesday it will appeal a ruling handed down by a district court in Taipei on a trade secret leak case filed by the company.In a verdict issued Monday, January 3rd, the Taipei District Court sentenced a former MediaTek employee surnamed Yang to nine months in prison that could be commuted to a fine of NT$270,000 (US$9,225) for leaking information to a MediaTek competitor...

Game Over and Lights Out on Eaton v. Frisby Trade Secrets Case

Posted on January 01, 2011
We?ve had tons of posts on this case going back as far as 2006. In this recent one from last June, we discussed the discovery sanctions against Eaton, the plaintiff in this trade secrets case concerning former employees who went to work for a rival company, Frisby...

Todd Quoted on Starwood Settlement

Posted on December 28, 2010
From the Los Angeles Times, here's a story on the recent settlement between Starwood and Hilton on their trade secrets case. Todd is quoted extensively. In June, Todd discussed the Hilton-Starwood case in a major L.A. Times article.

The Secrets of Sausage

Posted on December 23, 2010
Richmond BizSense is reporting that a butcher shop has sued a sausage wholesaler for misappropriation of trade secrets, among other things.Belmont Butchery claims that Sausage Craft and its owners, both former Belmont Butchery employees, copied recipes to help launch their company...

STARWOOD AND HILTON SETTLE MAJOR-LEAGUE TRADE SECRETS SPAT

Posted on December 22, 2010
The New York Times is reporting that Starwood Hotels and Resorts has settled its major trade secrets case against Hilton Hotels. We've been blogging about this one for a good while: http://wombletradesecrets.blogspot.com/2009/11/starwood-hotels-and-hilton-hotels-talk...

More Details on Trade Secrets and Insider Trading

Posted on December 18, 2010
Further to Todd?s posting yesterday, here?s a link from ZDnet.com to the criminal complaint unsealed in the Southern District of New York. The details are troubling.

The Intersection of Trade Secrets and Insider Trading Law

Posted on December 17, 2010
CNNMoney.com is running an interesting piece regarding the newly filed criminal complaint that accuses former Flextronics Senior Director of Business Development Walter Shimoon and others of surreptitiously disclosing information regarding Apple product developments to a now-cooperating witness from an unnamed hedge fund...

ANOTHER Trade Secret Theft Conviction and Sentence

Posted on December 15, 2010
The Associated Press is reporting that Georgia resident Kevin Crow, 57, had pleaded guilty to stealing 100 computer discs containing trade secrets of the company that laid him off in 2007. Mr. Crow was an engineer for Turbine Engines Components Technologies...

Judge Halts Former U.S. Trust Team From Using Client Info

Posted on December 13, 2010
Reuters is reporting that four former U.S. Trust employees have been enjoined by a New York state court from using client records they brought to their new employer, Dynasty Financial Partners.Michael Brown, a U.S. Trust adviser whose clients hold $5...

Ex-Goldman Sachs Programmer Found Guilty of Theft of High Frequency Trading Source Code Secrets

Posted on December 10, 2010
The Wall Street Journal and many other news agencies are reporting that Sergey Aleynikov, the former Goldman Sachs high frequency trading programmer, has been found guilty by a federal jury in New York of theft of trade secrets and transportation of stolen property in interstate and foreign commerce...

Former Valspar Employee David Yen Lee Sentenced for Criminal Trade Secrets Theft

Posted on December 09, 2010
We have been following the theft of Valspar's trade secrets since its initial reporting back in 2009, see: http://wombletradesecrets.blogspot.com/2009/03/chicago-area-valspar-employee-arrested.html and http://wombletradesecrets.blogspot.com/2010/09/guilty-plea-by-former-valspar-scientist...

No Trade Secrets Claim Against WikiLeaks

Posted on December 08, 2010
In a discussion of the prospect of a WikiLeaks prosecution, the New York Times considers ? and then rejects ? a possible trade secrets angle.The article notes that ?intellectual property law criminalizes the unauthorized reproduction of certain kinds of commercial information, like trade secrets,? but goes on to note that ?those categories do not appear to cover government documents, which by law cannot be copyrighted and for which there is no ordinary commercial market...

New Employer in Goldman Trade Secrets Prosecution: "I Don't Think Goldman Is Good At High Frequency Trading"

Posted on December 08, 2010
Catchy title to this blog post - but there's a reason that Teza's Mikhail Malyshev might want to offer an opinion that Goldman isn't that great at high-frequency trading: because some of the source code that Sergey Aleynikov stole from Goldman Sachs ended up on Teza's computers...

Lesson Learned from Ongoing Goldman Sachs Trade Secrets Criminal Trial: Shut Your Trap

Posted on December 07, 2010
This is a pretty interesting piece penned by Forbes' Emily Lambert. She has derived three rules from following the Sergey Aleynikov criminal trial: (1) When you leave a job, leave it behind; (2) If you ignore the above, shut your trap; and (3) Improve your online image...

Goldman Sachs Trade Secrets Trial: First Courtroom Closing Reported

Posted on December 03, 2010
You'll recall we are following the criminal trial of the guy pictured herein (Sergey Aleynikov) for allegedly stealing certain source code elements of the Goldman Sachs high frequency trading platform. You'll also recall that Judge Cote advised that she would only close the courtroom on a case-by-case basis as the testimony and evidence required it...

TCW Going After Gundlach's DoubleLine Funds Trust Now

Posted on December 02, 2010
We first reported on the claims of trade secret misappropriation against California-based money manager and financier Jeffrey Gundlach and his new company here: http://wombletradesecrets.blogspot.com/2010/01/money-management-firm-says-former.html. Bloomberg News is reporting that TCW is alleging in a newly filed suit that DoubleLine Funds Trust was started to market DoubleLine Capital?s mutual funds and to ?generate fees and profit for Gundlach and the money management firm he had formed,? according to a new complaint filed yesterday in state court in Los Angeles...

Goldman Sachs High Frequency Trading Trial Gets Underway - Defense Counsel Already Irritates Federal Judge

Posted on December 01, 2010
Peter Lattman in the New York Times DealBook has provided us an inside seat in the Economic Espionage Act prosecution of Sergey Aleynikov. Nothing really too interesting so far, other than the fact that Mr. Aleynikov's defense counsel apparently twice suggested that this case should be a civil matter and that Goldman could have sued Mr...

Goldman Sachs High Frequency Trading Secrets Prosecution Begins

Posted on November 30, 2010
We haven't linked you to the online site ForexDice but we're doing it here. The reason? This particular report is giving us some insight into the jurors sitting in the criminal trial of Sergey Aleynikov. We acknowledge the report is a tad choppy grammatically - but it gives us the following insight we hadn't found anywhere else:On Monday?s jury selection, the judge questioned jurors whether they had make use of computers at work & at home or not, whether they are familiar with anyone at Goldman or in law enforcement...

Marvell Successfully Defends Trade Secrets Case Brought By Jasmine Networks

Posted on November 29, 2010
We've been blogging about this case for a good while, see here: http://wombletradesecrets.blogspot.com/2010/01/standing-to-bring-trade-secrets-case-to.html. You'll recall this was the whacky case where the former Marvell general counsel and two of his colleagues phoned the legal chief of a rival company, Jasmine Networks Inc...

Zynga and Playdom Settle Trade Secrets Spat, With Disney's Assistance

Posted on November 23, 2010
VentureBeat is reporting that a settlement has been reached in the Zynga v. Playdom trade secrets litigation. Terms were not disclosed. Zynga sued its rival in social games in September of last year, alleging that four former Zynga employees stole the company?s trade secrets when they left the company to join Playdom...

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