In February 2013, the Obama Administration issued Administration Strategy on Mitigating the Theft of U.S. Trade Secrets. Part of that plan included the Administration's solicitation of public comment...
I am thrilled to announce that I have been given the opportunity to work with two of my favorite (though far more prolific) bloggers, Ken Vanko and John Marsh, to create a brand new podcast: Fairly Co...
I have at least had a chance to read the December 27, 2012 decision of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington in Amazon.com v. Powers, granting in part and denying in...
Once again, I am a bit behind on the next installment of Trade Secret | Noncompete Issues and Cases in the News. As a result, there is a lot here! Enjoy... 7th Circuit: The 7th Circuit Court of Ap...
It's time for this month's Trade Secret | Noncompete Issues and Cases in the News. Trade Secrets on the Internet: In the most recent case to address the issue of the effect of trade secrets being...
This year saw not one, but two cases involving allegations of trade secret misappropriation and breach of noncompete agreements by companies typically known for things other than their trade secrets....
Like a similar post last month, this post provides a summary of noncompete and trade secret issues and cases that have arisen in the past month or so, but that I have not already addressed in recent p...
About two years ago, my partner Steve Riden and I wrote a blog post on my old blog (the Trade Secrets / Noncompete Blog) entitled, Back to the Basics... The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The post wa...
This year, we have seen several dramatic changes to noncompete laws around the country. The following are some of the highlights: California: Many people thought noncompetes were DOA with the Cal...
While everyone else gets their information by googling it, how does Google get its information? Well, according to Pay Pal, it steals it. Just two days ago (Friday, May 27, 2011 - for those reading...
After months of confusion, it is now official: Georgia has a new - and valid - noncompete law. The law will apply only to noncompete agreements entered into on or after May 11, 2011, and will permit G...
As we all know, trade secret litigation has been steadily on the rise for the past decade. (See The Who, What, Where, When, How, and Why of Trade Secret Audits and, in the related area of noncompete...
The bill in Massachusetts to codify, clarify, and modernize Massachusetts law relative to employee noncompetition agreements was re-filed today, with several significant changes from the prior version...
While most people think of noncompete agreements as the traditional, “you can’t work there” type, there is another type of agreement that can create financial incentives so great that, as a prac...
We spend lots of time on this blog discussing trade secret protection. To give some context, I thought it might be helpful to have a few statistics: Trade secret and related noncompete cases have m...
Hank Mullany, former president of Walmart's northern U.S. division, reportedly left Walmart to head up CVS's retail pharmacy. In response, Walmart sued Mullany (Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Mullany, CA No...
Earlier this month, I tried something a bit different. Doing a take-off on what I do in the last class of the Trade Secrets and Restrictive Covenants course that I teach at Boston University School o...
Well, there continues to be a lot of discussion about Georgia's new noncompete law. The most recent discussion at this point is not about the substance, however. Rather, it's about whether the law is...
While there are many tales of trade secrets, the two most heralded are: (1) the heroic measures taken to protect the secret formula to Coke and (2) the claim that the origins of trade secret law date...
International trade secret theft has become an increasing problem. As a primer for our readers, we have created an "International Trade Secrets" links section, which we are in the process of popul...
The 50 state survey of noncompete laws has been updated, primarily to reflect the change in Georgia law. It is available for download here. Please note that the chart will be periodically updated...
Well, the waiting is over. Georgia voters voted to change their constitution to permit noncompetes to be more enforceable. Georgia had been long known as one of the harder states in which to enforc...
I am trying something a bit different. It's a take-off on what I do in my last class in the Trade Secrets and Restrictive Covenants course I teach at Boston University School of Law. So, here it goes....
When an employee is bound by a noncompetition agreement, it is rare for the noncompete to be the exclusive restriction on the employee's post-employment conduct. Rather, noncompetition agreements are...