Employee Misappropriation

Global Reach: U.S. Federal Rules Provide Assistance for Discovery in Foreign Matters

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Imagine the following scenario: Your company has filed several lawsuits around the world, all concerning generally the same subject matter, but against different parties because of jurisdictional limitations. The litigation overseas is subject to discovery rules that are far more limited than those available in the United States. The U.S. litigation has been stayed pending the result of the foreign matter. However, important information and witnesses that are useful in prosecuting the foreign litigation are located in the U.S., outside of the foreign court’s jurisdiction and applicable discovery rules. In this complex situation, is there any way to obtain that critical bit of information? Or can the U.S. witnesses evade all production and testimony because of jurisdictional bounds? READ MORE →

Texas Jury Rejects Digital Marketing Company’s $50 Million Trade Secret Misappropriation Claim

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After a weeklong June trial, a Texas federal jury awarded Six Dimensions, Inc. (“Six Dimensions”), a digital marketing firm, $287,000 for its breach-of-contract claim against its former employee but rejected its behemoth $50 million claim for trade secret misappropriation against its competitor, Perficient Inc. (“Perficient”). READ MORE →

Race to the Finish: Autonomous Vehicle Technology at the Forefront of Alleged Trade Secrets Theft

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The stakes couldn’t be higher in the race amongst Silicon Valley self-driving companies vying to be the first to bring the industry-changing technology to market.  With competition so steep, and the potential value counted in the trillions, the efforts to protect this technology have given rise to frequent trade secrets theft disputes.

In the most recent instance of alleged autonomous vehicle technology trade secret theft, a federal district court judge ordered the former director of hardware of WeRide Corp., Kun Huang, to return all files he allegedly downloaded from WeRide before his departure in 2018.  WeRide formerly credited Huang with its success in becoming the fastest autonomous vehicle company to complete its first public road test.  Now, WeRide alleges Huang copied confidential information from a company shared-laptop, deleted files from the laptop, cleared its web browsing history, and then erased the hard drive on his WeRide-issued personal MacBook.  Shortly thereafter, Huang began working at Zhong Zhi Xing Technology Co., Ltd. (ZZX), another defendant in the case, which WeRide alleges was founded by its former CEO, Jing Wang, also named as a defendant.

Based on these allegations, the Court granted WeRide a preliminary injunction against Huang and his new companies, ZZX and a related entity AllRide.AI, Inc., barring these parties from using or sharing WeRide’s trade secrets and requiring them to return all WeRide materials within four days of the order.

This case is but one of many recent trade secret disputes amongst Silicon Valley autonomous vehicle technology companies.  And with autonomous vehicle employee turnover high and trillions of dollars at stake, we expect to see many more trade secret disputes arise.

Trade Secret Sparks Beer Brawl in the Ninth Circuit: When is Your Word Enough?

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On September 13, the Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments on an issue of first impression in Anheuser-Busch Cos. v. James Clark, No. 17-15591 (9th Cir. 2015).

Anheuser-Busch filed a complaint in the Eastern District of California against former employee James Clark, alleging that he violated California’s Uniform Trade Secrets Act (CUTSA) by unlawfully disseminating a document containing its beer recipe for use in a separate class action suit. To support its allegations, the company submitted a declaration stating that the leaked document contained “confidential information related to Plaintiffs’ brewing processes, including but not limited to, information regarding a variety of analytical characteristics for each of [Plaintiffs’] products.” READ MORE →

Engineering a DTSA Claim: District Court Allows Broad Allegations to Survive Motion to Dismiss

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The strange contraption in this photo is at the heart of a recent decision regarding the pleading standard for DTSA claims.  On June 15, Eastern District of Pennsylvania Judge Juan Sanchez denied a motion to dismiss counts of trade secret misappropriation against Joshua Andrew Adams, a former project engineer for PDC Machines, Inc. who left the company and later joined Nel Hydrogen A/S.  PDC and Nel collaborated in 2008 to develop high-pressure hydrogen gas diaphragm compressors and signed a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) barring Nel from replicating or reverse engineering the technology.  Adams was also subject to an NDA that prohibited him from using any of PDC’s confidential information and trade secrets without written permission.  In the complaint, PDC asserts that Adams now works for Nel, and that Nel has filed at least one patent application listing Adams as the inventor for a high-pressure diaphragm hydrogen compressor that is nearly identical to PDC’s version. READ MORE →

Automation of Our Auto Nation: New Tech Requires a New Look at Trade Secret Laws

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Self-driving cars—once a thing of the future—are now becoming a reality. And, as with any new technology, there is a learning curve. Once consumers are able to test out new products, they adapt, preferences change, and what once seemed absurd or over-the-top becomes commonplace. Manufacturers then face perhaps an even steeper learning curve, trying to stay one step ahead of what the public will demand—and two steps ahead of the competition. READ MORE →

Trade Secret Misappropriation by Ex-Employees in China: How to Confront “Inside Theft”

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Article 123 of the General Provisions of the Civil Law of the People’s Republic of China (effective Oct. 1, 2017) confirmed that trade secrets are intellectual property, signifying China’s recognition of the importance of trade secret protection.  Nevertheless, trade secret misappropriation remains rampant in the country.  READ MORE →

Excess Cargo? Shipping Common Law Claims Out of a Trade Secret Complaint

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AFS, a company specializing in streamlining shipping costs and logistics, had its eight count amended complaint streamlined to only one—its Tennessee Uniform Trade Secrets Act (“TUSTA”) claim—primarily due to preemption and AFS’s lack of specificity as to its common law claims.

AFS filed suit in December 2016 against two prior employees, Christopher Cochran and Alessandro Rustioni, and their new competing company, Freightwise LLC.  AFS’s complaint set forth the classic case of defecting employee trade secret theft.  Among other things, AFS alleged that Cochran and Rustioni founded Freightwise in 2014 while still employed for AFS.  Both continued to work for AFS in sales leadership positions until late 2015 and early 2016.  And, they allegedly conspired to and secretly organized Freightwise by soliciting one of AFS’s major clients and maliciously interfering with its high-value contracts. READ MORE →

ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE AND PROTECTING TRADE SECRETS: Ninth Circuit Holds That Reasonable Measures to Guard Technology are Sufficient

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How can you protect your trade secrets from a vast and well-concealed international effort to steal those secrets? What constitutes a “reasonable” effort to protect that information where at least one competitor may already have the information?  The Ninth Circuit recently opined on these matters in the ongoing saga of U.S. v. Liew.

In 2014, Walter Liew and his company, USA Performance Technology, Inc., were convicted of multiple offenses, including claims under the Economic Espionage Act and conveying misappropriated trade secrets to a third party. The trade secrets related to DuPont’s technology for producing titanium dioxide, which is used in a wide range of products such as paint and Oreo cookies. READ MORE →

The Saga Continues: New York’s Highest Court Will Weigh in on Aleynikov’s Fate

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On April 20, 2017, the New York Court of Appeals issued a brief order continuing former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov’s eight-year voyage through the state’s and country’s legal systems.  Here’s the issue:  does making a digital copy of misappropriated source code instead of physical copy constitute a “tangible reproduction or representation” of the source code?   READ MORE →