Employee Mobility

If trade secrets misappropriation claims can be brought by non-owners, what should companies do to manage risk?

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Last week, we examined the recent Third Circuit decision in Advanced Fluid Systems, which held that a trade secrets plaintiff did not need to be an owner or a licensee of the alleged trade secrets to bring a state law misappropriation claim under Pennsylvania’s UTSA—all that was required was that the plaintiff had “lawful possession” of the trade secrets. In so holding, the Third Circuit added to the weight of the Fourth Circuit’s similar analysis of Maryland’s UTSA in DTM Research, L.L.C. v. AT&T Corp., 245 F.3d 327 (4th Cir. 2001).

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Spoliation by Self-Driving Startup Leads to Terminating Sanctions

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During the course of a trade secrets litigation, neglecting to preserve electronically stored information (“ESI”) may result in a finding of spoliation. In a recent Order issued by Judge Edward Davila (United States District Court, Northern District of California), two startups in the autonomous vehicle industry, WeRide and AllRide, learned that failure to adequately preserve ESI can also lead to terminating sanctions. READ MORE →

Indirect Competition Enough to Enforce Non-Compete Against Former CEO in Pennsylvania

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In the midst of nationwide efforts to reform the use of non-compete restrictions, a recent decision from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania illustrates the broad approach courts may take when enforcing restrictive covenants against high-level executives. READ MORE →

Key Trends from a Summer of Non-compete Reform

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The start of September means that summer is unofficially over. However, the end of beach season also means that big changes to state non-compete laws are on the horizon.

In the past three months, Maryland,[1] Maine,[2] New Hampshire,[3] and Rhode Island[4] have all passed legislation directly aimed at curtailing the use of non-compete agreements. This flurry of activity reflects a growing national concern about the fairness of non-compete restrictions and their impact on the U.S. workforce. For tangible evidence of this increasing concern, look no further than the preambles of the new laws in Maine and Maryland, both of which declare non-compete agreements as “against public policy.”

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Worried About Trade Secret Poaching? Check in With Your Third-party Service Providers

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Hiring external contractors is common practice in the fast-paced tech-industry where talent is scarce and in high-demand, but such a practice can expose a company’s most valuable IP to the confidentiality measures, or lack thereof, of those external contractors. This type of common business model is an area ripe for trade secret theft. University Accounting Services (“UAS”) alleges that this is exactly what happened when their point person at ScholarChip, an external tech company hired by UAS to design and maintain their tuition collection software “eUAS,” left ScholarChip and formed a product in direct competition with UAS. UAS filed suit in Oregon against ScholarChip and its former employee, and both filed a motion for summary judgement. The court denied the motion and held that there were genuine disputes of material fact surrounding the breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets claims, among others. READ MORE →

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right – Trade Secrets Saga Concludes With No Damages Awarded

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On Wednesday, a federal jury in the Eastern District of Texas declined to award any damages to Huawei Technologies Co., the world’s largest telecommunications company, stemming from its allegations of trade secret theft, employee poaching, and restrictive covenant violations against former employee Yiren Ronnie Huang (“Huang”) and startup CNEX Labs, Inc. (“CNEX”). Huang and CNEX, in turn, asserted counterclaims of trade secret theft against Huawei. Although the jury found Huang violated his post-employment obligations to Huawei and that Huawei misappropriated CNEX’s trade secrets, the jury did not award damages to either party. The verdict came after a contentious three-week trial before Judge Amos Mazzant on the parties’ dueling trade secret claims.

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