Informative Posts About Intellectual Property Law

First published in IPWatchdog.com The most interesting aspect of the Google v. Oracle case is that the court failed to address the issue of copyrightability, however, given the court’s approach to fair use it is uncertain as to whether this really matters. In short, the decision is likely to come as a ...

This was first published in IPWatchdog on March 26, 2021.    “Parties seeking the extraordinary remedy of an ex parte seizure order should emphasize whether, for example, the defendant has a high level of computer proficiency and that such a defendant may find ways to hide, quickly disseminate, or otherwise ...

This was first published in IPWatchdog on February 2, 2021. “The court found that the identification of trade secrets is an ‘iterative process where requests between parties lead to a refined and sufficiently particularized trade secret identification.’” Two of the most important issues in trade secret cases involve the timing ...

This was first published in IPWatchdog on January 3, 2021.  “The Biden administration and the DOJ should review the China Initiative to determine whether prosecutions and investigations are based on the race, ethnicity or ancestry of the targeted individual, and if so to take remedial action to prevent such profiling ...

2020 was the two-year anniversary of the Department of Justice’s “China Initiative,” which was intended to increase the focus on the investigation and prosecution of trade secret theft and economic espionage with a Chinese connection under the Economic Espionage Act (“EEA”). According to the DOJ, it charged three economic espionage ...

This article was first published in IPWatchdog.com on December 1, 2020. “On balance, and while it is sometimes difficult to forecast a Supreme Court outcome, the Court seemed extremely troubled by the government’s position.” In Van Buren v. United States, argued yesterday, the Supreme Court has a chance to address ...

This article was first published in IPWatchdog.com on October 27, 2020. “Plaintiffs must require the entry of a detailed stipulated protective order that adequately addresses the handling of trade secrets during pre-trial but also covers the trial and post-trial proceedings, including any appeal.” Plaintiffs in trade secret cases are often ...

“This is one of the largest-ever awards in a trade secret case. For smaller companies, it may be large enough to put them out of business. It is critical, therefore, that companies take steps, including training employees not to steal trade secrets.” On August 20, the Seventh Circuit in Epic ...

This article was first published in IPWatchdog.com on July 14, 2020. “The court’s analysis is flawed, and it relies on authority that is of limited value.” Part 1of this article addressed the Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Compulife Software, Inc. v. Newman, __ F.3d __, 2020 WL 2549505, (11th Cir. May ...

This article was first published in IPWatchdog.com on July 2, 2020.https://www.ipwatchdog.com/ “Surely, this is not the first instance in which bots were used to scrape publicly available information from a website. Yet the Eleventh Circuit failed to provide any support for its conclusion…. If support existed for the court’s legal ...

Two of the more important issues in trade secret cases involve when the plaintiff is required to identify its alleged trade secrets, and the degree of specificity with which they must be identified. However, the DTSA does not address either of these issues and most state courts have not agreed ...

This first appeared in IPWatchdog.com on May 18, 2020. “Regardless of the differences between the reports, they do highlight that there are many factors, apart from the merits of the case, that may have an impact on the final outcome, including and perhaps most importantly, where a trade secret case ...

This was originally published in IPWatchdog.com on April 14, 2020. “The Western District of Texas has now apparently become the venue of choice for filing patent infringement actions and it is forecasted to surpass the District of Delaware for the most new filings in 2020. While it is too soon ...

Federal courts on a variety of levels and in a variety of jurisdictions have grappled with the question of what it means to “access a computer without authorization” and to exceed which is an essential requirement under many of the subsections of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Now in ...

The history of corporate espionage in the United States is not a recent development. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the British textile industry was by far the largest in the world and was largely driven by its technological superiority especially the “Cartwright Loom,” which was considered the crown ...

On March 19, 2020, Anthony Levandowski, a pioneer of self-driving car technology, announced that he worked out a plea deal with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to one count of trade secret theft under the Economic Espionage Act. His trial was set for January 2021. Levandowski also recently filed for ...

“While companies are not required to institute every security measure possible to ensure that their confidential information qualifies as a trade secret, the more security measures implemented, the greater the likelihood that courts will find that the trade secret owner undertook ‘reasonable measures.’”  Trade secrets have become an increasingly valuable ...

Uber must face a $1 billion trade secrets lawsuit after a San Francisco jury handed down a verdict Friday finding that an inventor timely brought his claim that the ride-hailing giant and its founder stole his business concept.Since the jury found Halpern timely filed his trade secrets misappropriation suit, the ...

Part I of Key 2019 Trade Secret Decision and Trends, covered (1) Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media, 139  S.Ct. 2356 (2020) in which the Supreme Court held that commercial or financial information that is customarily and actually treated as private by its owner and provided to the government ...

In general, A trade secret is any information used in business if the owner has taken reasonable measures to keep such information secret, and the information derives independent economic value, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable through proper means by the public. Almost every state ...

We live in a world where data has become an increasingly valuable asset and huge companies are built on the collection and analysis of publicly available data. Yet, there is no federal statute that directly protects this type of information or even directly addresses how this information should be treated. ...

  The criminal case arose after a jury in Washington State had awarded T-Moibile $4,8 million in damages for breach of contract. Interestingly, the jury failed to award T-Mobile any damages for trade secret misappropriation even though they determined that Huawei did misappropriate trade secrets relating to Tappy. T-Mobile is ...

  On November 5, 2018, and shortly before being asked to resign by President Trump, Attorney General, Jeff Sessions ordered the creation of a “China Initiative” targeting economic espionage committed by companies based in the People’s Republic of China, and individuals having a connection to that country.[1] This initiative is ...

Law Journal Press just published Release 29 to my book Intellectual Property and Computer Crimes. The Release addresses developments involving the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA), including cases where courts have held that pre-enactment DTSA allegations of a misappropriation of a trade secret coupled with post-enactment continued use are ...