Tag Archives: trade secret

Over 50 percent of employees admit stealing company information when they leave for a new job. It’s this “insider threat” that keeps us up at night. To help combat it, we have updated and reissued our training, Protecting Trade Secrets While Working From Home, with improved audio and additional substance.
Once again, we have resounding unanimity on the issues and recommendations to the FTC and DOJ, as they consider whether to regulate (and if so, how) noncompetes, nondisclosure agreements, and other restrictive covenants. 70 lawyers who practice extensively in the area of trade secret and restrictive covenant law agree: federal regulation is likely inappropriate, definitely premature, and, in any event, should be limited.
Episode 12 of Fairly Competing is out! In this episode, Ben Fink, John Marsh, and I explore Wisk Aero LLC v. Archer Aviation Inc., an extremely well-reasoned decision offering an object lesson about preliminary injunctions in trade secret cases, highlighting that it’s no longer safe to assume you will get a preliminary injunction simply because a former employee downloaded 5,000 documents — even if he invokes the 5th Amendment.
If you’ve been following along with this series of posts, you know that there have been 66 noncompete bills pending in 25 states this year — plus three pending federal noncompete bills, D.C.’s new law to ban most noncompetes, and a bill to rein in D.C’s new law before it becomes effective (which is anticipated to be in April 2022). Today’s post discusses New Jersey’s proposed noncompete legislation.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Van Buren is out. The Court took a narrow view on the scope of the CFAA, resolving key aspects of the circuit split, and eliminating the concern that every breach of fiduciary duties by an employee or violation by an employee of the terms of their employer’s computer use policy can be a criminal act.