You may have heard something in the news about a former employee getting caught holding onto his prior employer’s documents after losing his job. This example is unusual, to say the least. And setting aside your political leanings, let’s look at how similar scenarios play out for the rest of us.
A recently filed trade secret misappropriation lawsuit in the Michigan Eastern District Federal Court is a good reminder for both employers and individuals about the dangers stemming from not protecting or wrongfully using confidential or trade secret information.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Van Dyke Horn LLC, a public relations company.
A recent court opinion is a cautionary tale for business owners and entrepreneurs and their attorneys about the importance of protecting attorney-client communications. It is also a reminder of how easily that privilege can be inadvertently waived and the downstream impact it can have on noncompete disputes.
The court opinion comes from a
A Federal Judge recently blocked LinkedIn from restricting another company from using data from LinkedIn’s website. The suit involves Linkedin and hiQ Labs, Inc. The suit also has significant ramifications for job-seekers and employers. See LinkedIn Profiles Used to Alert Employers Which Employees are Job-Hunting.
hiQ
A federal appeals court on July 5, 2016, affirmed the conviction of a former executive, David Nosal in a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) case that we’ve extensively covered.
In sum, Mr. Nosal was charged in 2012 and amended charges were filed in 2013 for violating the CFAA by using a shared password
A lawsuit involving trade secret misappropriation recently brought to mind the definition of a “knee-jerk reaction;” an “automatic and unthinking” response.
Specifically, our law firm filed a lawsuit for breach of contract involving unpaid commissions and other claims on behalf of a former executive. In response, the former employer manufactured filed a counter-claim for trade
In coming post, we will be covering in detail sweeping changes to trade secret law resulting from the recent enactment of the Defend Trade Secrets Act. This statute was signed into law on May 12, 2016, by President Obama with overwhelming bipartisan support (410 to 2 in the U.S. House of Representatives and by a
Aliphcom, Inc. d/b/a Jawbone won an early legal battle in a lawsuit filed against five of its former employees and its rival Fitbit, Inc.
Specifically, in a preliminary injunction hearing held on 10/20/2015, the individual defendant were ordered by a federal judge to return any confidential information they took and to allow their computers and
When it comes to post employment restrictions, non-compete agreements often get all the attention. In fact, such restrictions are a frequent subject of discussion on our law firm’s blog (Noncompete Restrictions: The First Line of Defense for Protecting the Company from Unfair Competition).
However, as explained below, a carefully drafted non-solicitation provision should
Business involves competition. But not all competition is lawful. Two former employees found this out the hard way after a judge determined on May 22, 2015 that they had wrongfully started a competing business while they continued to work for their employer along with misappropriating trade secrets and engaging in other wrongful acts (Nedschroef