Trade Secrets

To the superstitious, July is often considered an unlucky month for weddings. In a nod to such lore, and to the leisurely and whimsical days of summer, this is a satirical “love” letter from a fictitious client to its fictitious outside intellectual property counsel, a domestic or foreign law firm. ... Read More

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 ... Read More

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 ... Read More

Management of trade secrets is fraught with competing interests. There is the tradeoff between security and inconvenience—for example, the annoying wait for a special code to allow “two-factor identification” when you already have your password handy. There is trusting your employees while knowing they might leave to join a competitor. ... Read More

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”). In 2017, Six Dimensions filed ... Read More

Tillman v Egon Zehnder Ltd., the first employment competition case to reach the UK’s highest court in over a century was decided on July 3, 2019, changing the landscape for noncompetition agreements in the UK. Under English law, for a restrictive covenant to be upheld, it must (1) seek to ... Read More

Happy 4th! This week Barks & Bites comes early, starting with a bite: The Federal Circuit denies rehearing of Athena Diagnostics v. Mayo Collaborative Services, shattering the hopes of many amici and diagnostic companies; Huawei warns against politicization of IP law after the Trump Administration rolls back part of its ... Read More

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, ... Read More

This week in Other Barks & Bites: The Supreme Court today agreed to hear two trademark cases next term; Senators Thom Tillis and Chris Coons issue a statement regarding the recent round of patent eligibility hearings by the Senate Intellectual Property Subcommittee; four bills that would impact pharmaceutical patents and ... Read More

Coverage of the ongoing patent reform debate in the Senate Judiciary Committee by the popular press has been alarmist and largely incorrect. For example, even just yesterday—five days after the final hearing on patent eligibility reform concluded—the top story in Google’s patent alert results was “Corporations shouldn't be able to ... Read More

Developments in technology have led to advanced ways of protecting trade secrets. In an age where passwords, metadata, and paper trails are often the stories told to demonstrate misappropriation, it may seem that trade secrets must be reduced to a tangible form to be protected. However, a recent Oregon Court ... Read More

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Supreme Court’s decision in Return Mail prohibits the federal government from petitioning for America Invents Act (AIA) patent validity trials; the TERM Act is introduced into the House of Representatives to reduce patent evergreening; the leadership of the Senate IP Subcommittee calls ... Read More

IPWatchdog will host its first Annual Meeting and Conference from March 15-18, 2020. The event will take place at the Renaissance Dallas Richardson in Dallas, Texas. Registration will begin on Sunday, March 15, followed by an opening General Session, and then an Opening Reception. We will begin Monday, March 16 ... Read More

In late May, news reports surfaced regarding allegations of trade secret theft committed by Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies that had been made in an Eastern District of Texas case. The claims targeted an executive working for Huawei who is accused of participating in a scheme to misappropriate trade secrets ... Read More

After three hearings and 45 witnesses, there were few new fundamental arguments advanced for or against reforming patent eligibility law at today’s final Senate IP Subcommittee hearing on the topic, but several key—and some alarming—messages were underscored. A few takeaways off the bat: there are going to be considerable changes ... Read More

Oregon recently enacted HB2992, further limiting its already restrictive non-compete law, which will apply to any agreements entered on or after January 1, 2020.  The new law amends Oregon’s prior non-compete law by requiring the employer, as a condition of the non-compete’ s enforceability, to provide a signed, written copy ... Read More

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Senate IP Subcommittee announces its roster of panels for its first two of three hearings on patent eligibility in America; the U.S. International Trade Commission institutes a Section 337 investigation of lithium ion batteries over trade secret claims; reports indicate that Amazon ... Read More

Over the course of two weeks, the United States has imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods and has blacklisted Huawei, the world's largest telecommunications company, on national security grounds. Google, Intel, Qualcomm and Micron have announced that they will stop doing business with the company. ... Read More

This week in Other Barks & Bites: Chinese state media pushes back on the United States’ claims of intellectual property theft; a bipartisan coalition from both houses of Congress releases a draft proposal of Section 101 patent law reform; Senator Coons seeks more information on Amazon’s privacy practices for Alexa ... Read More

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 ... Read More

This week in Other Barks & Bites, IPWatchdog's IP news roundup: the House of Representatives passes drug patent legislation, while antitrust legislation targeting patent-related activities is introduced into the Senate and the Trump administration mandates pricing information for pharmaceutical ads; the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issues a pair ... Read More

This week in IP news: the CASE Act, which would create a small claims system for copyright claims, is reintroduced in both houses of Congress; Qualcomm earns a massive $4.5 billion payment from its settlement with Apple; the U.S. Supreme Court seeks input from the Solicitor General on Oracle v. ... Read More

On April 25, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) released both its annual Special 301 Report and an updated Notorious Markets List, each of which highlights international issues facing U.S. intellectual property owners living in the United States and abroad. The Special 301 Report this year includes 36 ... Read More

It’s among an in-house counsel’s worst nightmares. A former business partner, ex-employee, consultant, or competitor has stolen your company’s trade secret information. Company management demands swift action. You hire outside counsel who, after reviewing your company policies and interviewing stakeholders, tells you that he or she is concerned about being ... Read More

In 1994, the United States was winding up the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations leading to the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Tucked in among the toothbrush and rice tariffs was the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property. The TRIPS Agreement was seen as a breakthrough, setting ... Read More

Earlier this week we reported on Lori Cheek, an independent inventor who is defending herself for the second time against accusations brought by Alfred Pirri, Jr. of fraud and misappropriation of trade secrets, among other claims, and who feels like the U.S. patent and legal systems have done her few ... Read More

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 ... Read More

This week in other IP news, recently released data shows that worldwide revenues for music copyright exceeded $28 billion in 2017, up $2 billion over 2016; reports surface about the  “reverse patent trolling” issue in China; Google retains Williams & Connolly for Supreme Court battle with Oracle despite Shanmugam exit; ... Read More

This week in other IP news, recently released data shows that worldwide revenues for music copyright exceeded $28 billion in 2017, up $2 billion over 2016; reports surface about the  “reverse patent trolling” issue in China; Google retains Williams & Connolly for Supreme Court battle with Oracle despite Shanmugam exit; ... Read More

Scott Elmer is Director, Office of Technology Licensing, at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, one of the leading pediatric cancer hospitals in the country. The institution is focused on treatment of and research on children's catastrophic diseases, particularly leukemia and other cancers. The hospital costs about $2.8 million a day ... Read More