Posts by: Glenn Dassoff

Employee Non-Solicitation and No-Hire Covenants? What’s the Scoop, California?

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The law in California is well settled that, with few exceptions, non-compete agreements are unenforceable.  Less clear is whether and to what extent employee non-solicitation and no-hire agreements can withstand a court’s scrutiny.  These types of agreements often exist between employers and employees, as well as between employers themselves.  And while non-solicitation provisions containing broad language prohibiting direct or indirect solicitation are common, there is significant confusion over the extent of their enforceability in California.  Are these agreements enforceable?  As is often the case, the answer is “it depends.”  Fortunately, there are a handful of published appellate cases highlighting the fine distinctions that guide the analysis: READ MORE →

Courts Continue to Enforce Foreign Non-Competes in California While the Window for Such Agreements Slowly Closes

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Contrary to common perception, California employees who signed restrictive covenants prior to January 1, 2017 are not completely immune to enforcement of all restrictions on competition. For the second time in several years, a foreign corporation, Synthes, Inc., successfully enforced a non-competition agreement against former employees who were California residents. In the most recent case, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, enforced the company’s agreement against a Sacramento resident. READ MORE →

Trade Secrets v. Patents: Considerations in Choosing How to Protect Your IP

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Intellectual property owners may seek to protect certain information either by obtaining a patent or by maintaining its secrecy. A patent provides strong, exclusive rights for a fixed period of time, generally twenty years. A trade secret may last indefinitely but protection can be lost through independent development, reverse engineering, or failure to maintain secrecy. (We previously published a chart comparing the features of patents and trade secrets.) This article discusses those instances when trade secret protection may be superior to patent protection.  READ MORE →

Blast From The Past: A Look Back At Lessons Learned

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This week, TSW revisits some cases that taught us valuable lessons in the complex and ever-changing trade secrets arena. As our readers know, trade secrets law keeps evolving due to new case law and the near certainty of a new federal cause of action, which will provide for federal jurisdiction where there was none, consistency throughout the country on enforcement of these claims, and a couple of new remedies. The risks to trade secret protection also continue to grow due to cybersecurity and social media considerations. In short, a business must balance several factors when determining how to best protect trade secrets, but it is sometimes the simple missteps that can sink a company’s efforts to enforce its trade secrets. Here are some key takeaways learned over the years. READ MORE →