After a long political season that took many twists and turns due in part to revelations from WikiLeaks, the holiday season finally arrived. For many, that meant family traditions, time away from work, and massive amounts of college football, thanks to the current litany of televised bowl games.
Hollywood’s heavy-hitters often enter the ring over unauthorized biographies. Elizabeth Taylor famously invoked her rights of publicity and privacy in an attempt to shut down an unofficial docudrama about her life; Clint Eastwood sued the author and publisher of his unsanctioned biography for libel; and a film production company brought claims for copyright and trademark infringement against the producers of the biopic Lovelace starring Amanda Seyfried. Hollywood’s newest matchup involves misappropriation of trade secrets, a growing concern in the entertainment industry, especially after the recent Sony hack. READ MORE
If a third party sends you someone’s trade secrets, and you delete them as soon as you know they’re trade secrets, you’re off the hook for misappropriation.
That, in a nutshell, is what a Florida federal judge held on January 14, when he dismissed Dyncorp International LLC’s allegations that rival contractor AAR Airlift Group, Inc. stole trade secrets to gain an unfair advantage in securing a multibillion-dollar government contract. The contract, which Dyncorp had performed for more than 20 years, was to provide aviation support to the U.S. State Department for its counter-narcotics operations. READ MORE
With stories of cyberattacks and data breaches on a seemingly endless loop, businesses and governments have been doubling down on their efforts to protect digital information and assets. But, in some industries, the greatest threat might still be a pair of quick hands. For instance, in the restaurant industry, opening the kitchen doors to a new employee creates real risks. As we’ve discussed, sometimes the decision whether to print or download can have major legal ramifications. And with computer forensics technology growing in leaps and bounds, sometimes an old-school paper trail might be more enticing to would-be perps than a digital one. That said, the FBI has a track record of turning up bags of shredded documents in grocery store dumpsters. READ MORE
On July 28, broad bipartisan support ushered the “Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2015” onto the floor of both the House and Senate. This DTSA treads the well-worn path of many similar (and, to date, hapless) bills that fruitlessly preceded it. TSW has exhaustively covered prior attempts, aptly titling our first post “Pols Gone Wild: Congress Discovers Trade Secret Theft and Cybersecurity Are Problems; We Sort Through the Explosion of Legislation”—chart and all. READ MORE
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently revisited the issue of the Copyright Law preemption of trade secrets claims in Spear Marketing, Inc. v. Bancorpsouth Bank. The decision not only resolved the scope of Copyright Law preemption in the Fifth Circuit, but also made clear that the Fifth Circuit “join[s] the majority position” to hold that state law claims based on ideas fixed in tangible media are preempted by §301(a). The decision creates greater clarity and uniformity in Copyright Law preemption and should help litigants avoid wasting resources by filing actions based on state law claims that are preempted. READ MORE
As we approach the dog days of summer, baseball season is again in full bloom. We previously discussed old-fashioned sign stealing in the context of teams trying to gain a competitive advantage during an actual game. But it appears these hijinks have evolved in today’s electronic world. As the New York Times first reported, the FBI and Department of Justice prosecutors are investigating front-office personnel for the St. Louis Cardinals, one of Major League Baseball’s most beloved franchises, for allegedly infiltrating the internal network of the Houston Astros. READ MORE
The paradigmatic trade secret is something that is obviously technical, such as source code or the formula for Coke. Though trade secrets protection is not limited to technical trade secrets, it can sometimes be tricky to claim trade secrecy over non-technical trade secrets, such as customer or employee contact lists, that are commercially valuable yet may seem more accessible and therefore less secret. California Code of Civil Procedure Section 2019.210 compounds the issue by requiring a plaintiff to make a detailed disclosure of trade secrets as a precondition to frame the discovery to come. Section 2019.210 therefore immediately places an often-challenging decision upon the plaintiff—selecting what it should claim as trade secrets in litigation. READ MORE
Earlier this month, AmTote International, Inc. sued the famed Kentucky Downs racetrack, three high-ranking Kentucky Downs employees, and Encore Gaming, LLC in federal court alleging misappropriation of trade secrets related to horse racing betting machines. AmTote’s lawsuit presents the interesting question of whether the “inevitable disclosure” doctrine applies under Kentucky law. READ MORE
Orrick’s Chris Ottenweller and Derek Knerr recently took to Law360 to review recent cases involving theories of third-party liability for trade secret misappropriation. New employees are one obvious source of potential liability if they bring to the job information obtained from their prior employer. But in recent years companies have also increasingly faced suits based on relationships with contractors and vendors. Chris and Derek offer some practical considerations to help companies mitigate potential liability in the first place.
