Hope for the best, plan for the worst. - John Jay The ability to protect trade secrets (and other legitimate business interests, including customer goodwill) has been hit by a perfect storm caused b...
The identification of trade secrets in misappropriation litigation is a critically important and evolving area of trade secret law. Not surprisingly, it is the subject of widely divergent and conflict...
This seems to be the month for unicorns. In the past 30 days, we have had three. First, there was the trademark case – literally about unicorns. Then, the First Circuit gave us rare insight i...
With the continuing unfolding of the COVID19 pandemic, I remain particularly focused on identifying resources that I hope will be helpful to people while they try to cope with the new reality (hence t...
Hello all, just a quick note, we are just under a month away from the AIPLA's 2020 Trade Secret Law Summit, truly one of the premier trade secrets programs. The Summit is scheduled for Monday, Marc...
Happy New Year! On January 9, 2020, the FTC will be holding a hearing (at 8:30 a.m. at the FTC’s Headquarters Building, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC) “to examine whether there is...
With three-plus years of Defend Trade Secrets Act (the "DTSA") law under our belts and almost a year of the "new" Massachusetts new trade secrets law, my new book, Trade Secrets Law for the Massachus...
The other day, I was listening to 1970’s and 80’s music (which I am wont to do, much to my wife’s chagrin). The music, as music often does, evoked memories of the past. Think what you...
Who controls what's in your brain? When a former employee knows his or her former employer’s trade secrets, the former employer may be able to obtain injunctive relief preventing the employee, not...
In preparation for the start of my class (I teach Trade Secrets and Restrictive Covenants at my old law school, Boston University School of Law), I re-ran my chart of reported noncomepte and trade sec...
Back in July, I posted a story about how courts and lawyers frequently assess whether a noncompete is overly broad by asking whether the restriction would prevent the employee from working as a janit...
Governor Baker just signed the noncompete and trade secrets bills. They are now law. Here is what you need to know: Massachusetts noncompete and trade secret reform has arrived: What you need to k...
Last week, I posted an article explaining the new noncompete and trade secrets law reform legislation passed by the Massachusetts Legislature. See Massachusetts noncompete and trade secret reform ha...
Today, the Massachusetts Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development held a hearing on the 8 bills involving noncompetes or trade secrets currently pending at the State House. As many of you w...
In preparation for an upcoming discussion of trade secrets law for PLI in San Francisco (Trade Secrets 2017: What Every Lawyer Should Know), I reran my chart of noncomepte and trade secrets decisions....
It turns out that I missed a few bills! New York: Two identical bills (one in the Assembly (A 6419) and one in the Senate (S 4688)) to adopt the Uniform Trade Secrets Act; and one (S 1204) that...
Almost nine years in the making, Massachusetts is on the cusp of noncompete reform. And, decades in the making (yes, decades, thanks to Steve Chow's extraordinary efforts), Massachusetts is also...
Noncompete agreements have for about a decade been the focus of legislative efforts around the country. Some states seek to strengthen enforcement of them, while others seek to scale them back or elim...
On May 19, 2017, Texas passed An Act Relating to the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act. The Act defines "clear and convincing" (which is the standard for showing willfulness under the Texas Uni...
Every state but Massachusetts and New York has adopted the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (the UTSA) in one form or another – though some may quibble with whether Alabama or North Carolina actually ad...
Below are the latest issues and cases making trade secrets | noncompete news since our last update. There's a lot to catch up on (sorry!) … Remember that the Changing Trade Secrets | Noncompete...
A few years ago, I became curious to see how many reported trade secret / noncompete decisions were issued each year in all federal and state courts around the country. So, I did a “back of the enve...