eBay has reportedly been sued by EPRT Ventures for $3.8 million. The claim appears to be not only that eBay supposedly infringes on certain patents, but that eBay misappropriated trade secrets disclos...
You are planning to terminate an employee or you have an employee who is in the process of resigning - or has already resigned. The employee is not subject to a noncompete, or maybe there is some ques...
Each time a new technology rolls out, legal decisions follow. Social media is the latest. Remember the cyberstalker? How about Facebook's lawsuit against Power.com? Or the class action against Face...
Lawsuits over trade secrets typically involve things like customer lists, formulas, manufacturing processes, etc. Can the location of houses for use as movie sets be a trade secret? Yep. Well, at leas...
Exactly one year ago, I wrote a post entitled "An Ounce of Prevention... " for my prior law firm's Trade Secret / Noncompete Blog (which I had created only days earlier). In the post, I recommended...
Are noncompetes legal? YES!! (I'm asked that question way too often.) Of course, the answer needs clarification. There are limits on the use of noncompetes. In addition to the standard requirements...
If you're not a patent lawyer, you probably haven't given much thought to the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Bilski v. Kappos, the decision that clarifies what the test is for determining whe...
About one year after trying unsuccessfully to enforce a noncompetetition agreement against high level former executive David Johnson to prevent him from going to Dell, IBM is now seeking to prevent an...
Back in January, I wrote about Bimbo Bakeries USA Inc. having sued a former executive who left for competitor Hostess Brands Inc. (The story appears on the Trade Secret / Noncompete Blog, which I had...
You followed the rules. You did as you were told. You didn’t take any documents from your former employer when you left your job. Excellent! But, what about your former employer’s trade secre...
This post is intended to answer many of the questions that I have been asked lately about the pending noncompete legislation. First, two important points: (1) The bill would not apply retroactiv...
In most states, trade secrets and confidential information (among certain other things) are legitimate business interests that may be protected through a noncompetition agreement (as well as through...
We're now fully operational here and at Beck Reed Riden LLP! With that, we are able to bring all of the basic services to full capacity. Toward that end, I have updated the links on the right sid...
For those of you who were following the progress of the MA noncompete bill in my prior blog (Foley & Lardner's Trade Secret / Noncompete Blog), I am now continuing the coverage here (as I have sta...
The explosion of the importance of trade secrets is at this point old news. The new news, however, is the rise of use of noncompetes and other restrictive covenants (for example, nondisclosure agree...
It is official: The Massachusetts noncompete bill (of which I am the principal draftsperson) has been reported out of committee. A copy is available here or by clicking on the picture to the right...
Thinking about whether "Fair Competition" is a nice play on "Unfair Competition," insofar as FAIR competition is the ultimate goal of unfair competition laws. What do you think?...