Trade Secrets

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 →

Are State Governments Immune From Suit For Misappropriation Of Trade Secrets?

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You are a state-government contractor. You respond to an RFP issued by a state-government entity. In your bid proposal, you submit documents that contain your trade secrets. You do not get the contract, but you later learn that the state-government entity gave your trade secret information to your direct competitor who did get the contract. Do you have any options under federal or state trade secret laws to sue the state? 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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Tariff Chess Match Escalates Between China and the United States

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Trade Secrets Watch has been covering the escalating economic tension between China and the U.S., including the U.S. Trade Representative’s investigation on China’s alleged IP theft under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, dueling imposition of tariffs in March 2018, and the USTR announcement of products against which it proposed to impose 25 percent import duties. READ MORE →

T-R-NO: Nevada District Court Denies Motion for TRO Despite Evidence of Mass Download of Company Files and Steps Taken to Cover Tracks

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Our readers have seen enough of our blog posts to be familiar with the classic ex-employee trade secrets theft scenario:  employee downloads confidential files to his personal computer; employee attempts to cover his tracks with deletions of those files; employee resigns from the company to work for a competitor. When such a classic case results in litigation, the plaintiff company typically succeeds in obtaining injunctive relief against the ex-employee. We posted about one successful preliminary injunction motion last year. A recent district court decision out of the District of Nevada, however, shows that a motion for TRO on seemingly slam-dunk facts is never guaranteed. This decision highlights two important takeaways for litigators: (1) if your client is facing imminent business harm, seek an injunction immediately; and (2) in the Ninth Circuit, there is no presumption of irreparable harm, even if the evidence shows trade secret misappropriation or a breach of the employee’s confidentiality agreement. READ MORE →