Trading Secrets

Social media and related issues in the workplace can be a headache for employers. There is no denying that social media has transformed the way that companies conduct business. In light of the rapid evolution of social media, companies today face significant legal challenges on a variety of issues, ranging from employee privacy and protected activity to data practices, identity theft, cybersecurity, and protection of intellectual property.

A recent decision from the Supreme Court of Wisconsin affirmed a trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of a defendant accused of conspiring to misappropriate its competitor’s trade secrets. By a 4-3 decision in North Highland Inc. v. Jefferson Machine & Tool Inc., 2017 WI 75 (July 6, 2017), the Court found that plaintiff North Highland, Inc. (“North Highland”) had failed to present sufficient evidence of misappropriation or conspiracy to proceed beyond the summary judgment stage, prompting a notably sharp exchange with dissenting Chief Justice Patience D. Roggensack and a second dissent by two other justices.

As a special feature of our blog—special guest postings by experts, clients, and other professionals—please enjoy this blog entry from Charlie Platt, a director at iDiscovery Solutions.

It’s Friday afternoon and the conversation goes a little like this, “Wait, what? They’re leaving? Where are they going? Is there any opportunity to help them reconsider?”

When a key employee departs an organization, it can take a toll on clients and colleagues, productivity, and morale. What follows is...

As a special feature of our blog—special guest postings by experts, clients, and other professionals—please enjoy this blog entry from Daniel Garrie, senior partner and co-founder of Law & Forensics.

This post originally appeared on the Legal Executive Institute blog.

The dirty secret of trade secret disputes is that even if you win, it can be difficult to get back to where you started. It’s like closing the stable door after the horses have run off with trade secret disputes. A court or arbitration panel may not have trouble reaching findings of fact and conclusions of law, but the secrets are still out there. And ensuring that the trade secret information is entirely removed from the offending company’s systems is a lot harder than rounding up wild horses.

As a special feature of our blog—special guest postings by experts, clients, and other professionals—please enjoy this blog entry from Supreet Singh, a senior consultant at iDiscovery Solutions, Inc.

It’s hard to believe the first smartphone was released over 20 years ago. At that time, few thought it would become such an integral part of our lives. Additionally, this year marks the 10th anniversary of the iPhone and its introduction altered the world of digital forensics. Smartphones contain a wealth of personal and sensitive information like passwords, security or access codes, account numbers, electronic communications, and much more. But they are more than mere containers of data. Between the operating system, installed applications, and service providers, there’s a wealth of information that can provide dramatic insight into conversations, activities, habits, preferences, and movements of the phone’s user.

The Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) states very clearly that an injunction issued pursuant thereto may not “prevent a person from entering into an employment relationship,” and that any conditions placed on a former employee’s employment in an injunction must be based on “evidence of threatened misappropriation and not merely on the information the person knows.” (Emphasis added). This language appears to bar injunctive relief under the DTSA based on the “inevitable disclosure doctrine,” which in some states permits a court to enjoin a former employee from working for a competitor—even in the absence of a signed non-compete agreement—if it can be established that the employee would “inevitably” (even if inadvertently) use his or her former employer’s trade secrets on behalf of a new employer. As a result, when the statute was first enacted, many commentators assumed that claims based on the inevitable disclosure doctrine would quickly be shot down. In practice, however, that does not appear to be the case. At the very least, some recent federal court decisions have sown confusion around this issue.

Uber’s ongoing battle with Waymo in the Northern District of California federal court over technology used in self-driving cars provided another significant decision concerning the broad scope of trade secret preemption under California state law.

On June 3, 2017, Governor Sandoval signed Assembly Bill 276 into law, amending Nevada Revised Statute 613, which governs non-competition agreements. Notably, the law adds requirements to the enforceability and validity of non-competition agreements, and importantly, now allows courts to “blue-pencil” non-competition agreements, overturning Nevada Supreme Court’s recent decision in Golden Road Motor Inn, Inc. v. Islam.

As a special feature of our blog—special guest postings by experts, clients, and other professionals—please enjoy this blog entry from Charlie Platt, a director at iDiscovery Solutions and a Certified Ethical Hacker. He advises clients on data analytics, digital forensics, and cybersecurity.

These days cybersecurity seems to be all about technology. Pen testing, firewalls, port scanning, SIEM, zero-day, IPS, AES256, SHA, DMZ, NIDS, TLS, SS7 – I’ll stop. I could go on, but you get the idea. And I have a vested interest in keeping your attention...

On May 11, 2017, a Northern District of Illinois federal court ruled that a Plaintiff properly alleged misappropriation under both the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) and the Illinois Trade Secrets Act (ITSA) in a case where the employee downloaded files onto a personal thumb drive and then went to a competitor.

Trade secret identification and protection is more critical than ever for employers. Technology is consuming the way we do business, and new laws concerning trade secrets and the content of employment agreements make trade secret identification and protection more critical than ever.

On Tuesday, July 18, 2017, Seyfarth attorneys Robert B. Milligan and D. Joshua Salinas, joined by Jim Vaughn, one of California’s leading computer forensics experts, will present Trade Secret Protection: What Every Employer Needs to Know. This is the fourth installment in our 2017 Trade Secrets Webinar Series.

This webinar is designed to...

Hearkening back to the rivalry between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s, Massachusetts courts (as well as others around the country) have increasingly been asked to analyze the application of California law in litigation related to non-competition agreements. As many readers of this blog know, non-competition agreements are generally not enforceable under California law. Thus, even where the subject agreement contains a forum selection clause outside of California, or where the employee may have worked in another state, former employees are increasingly racing to file first in California courts or arguing that California law should be applied, thereby hoping to avoid any restrictions on mobility.

On May 19, 2017, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law several amendments to the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act (“TUTSA”), located in Chapter 134A of the Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code. The amendments go into effect on September 1, 2017.  In doing so, Texas has aligned its statute more closely with federal law and codified recent judicial interpretations of the law.

In a series of breakfast briefings, Seyfarth attorneys Robert Milligan, Joshua Salinas, and Scott Atkinson, joined by Jim Vaughn, one of California’s leading computer forensic experts, discussed how to navigate the tricky waters and provided best practices for trade secret protection. The briefings covered how to best identify and protect trade secrets, what employers need to know about the DTSA, the impact of new California Labor Code Section 925, how to catch a trade secret thief, and more. Click here to see the slides from the briefings.

As a conclusion to this well-received Breakfast Briefing Series, we compiled a summary of three takeaways that were discussed during the briefings...

One year after its enactment, the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) continues to be one of the most significant and closely followed developments in trade secret law. The statute provides for a federal civil cause of action for trade secret theft, protections for whistleblowers, and new remedies (e.g., ex parte seizure of property), that were not previously available under state trade secret laws. The less than 70 reported DTSA cases to date provide an early glimpse into how courts may interpret the statute going forward and what early concerns about the statute may have been exaggerated.

A Northern District of California court recently held a plaintiff could amend its complaint to add a Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”) claim when discovery showed continued misappropriation after the enactment of the DTSA on May 11, 2016.

The Ninth Circuit recently held in United States v. Liew that it was not plain error for the district court not to instruct the jury that disclosure “‘to even a single recipient who is not legally bound to maintain [a trade secret’s] secrecy’ destroys trade secret protection.” As a result, the Ninth Circuit upheld criminal convictions under the (pre-Defend Trade Secrets Act) Economic Espionage Act (“EEA”) for trade secret misappropriation despite a third-party competitor (who was not bound by any confidentiality obligations) acquiring the trade secret.