Trade Secrets and Competition

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A recent study by Symantec shows that employee theft of employer confidential information is widespread. A summary of the survey is available at www4.symantec.com/marketinginfo/data.  The survey was conducted by a private research institute.  Some of the more alarming results of the study include:

  • Approximately 50% of the employees who left or lost their jobs in

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This blog has periodically visited the issue of preemption in trade secret cases.  Preemption arises when a plaintiff alleges common law causes of action (such as conversion or interference with economic relations) with a trade secret misappropriation claim that is based on the “same nucleus of facts.”  California courts have repeatedly held that California’s Uniform…

Prior blog posts have addressed the issue of when a court may award attorneys’ fees in a trade secret misappropriation case.  Under the California trade secret statute, the court may award attorneys’ fees where there has been a willful and malicious misappropriation of plaintiff’s trade secrets or when a trade secret misappropriation claim is brought…

By:   James Kachmar

Those of you who attended our seminar on protecting confidential and trade secret information last Spring may recall our discussion about a trade secret misappropriation case involving a Twitter account. In that case, PhoneDog v. Kravitz, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 129229 (N.D. Cal. 2011), a product news and review company, PhoneDog, claimed it issued Twitter accounts to its employees so that they could publish content for users to support PhoneDog’s business. When one employee, Kravitz, left PhoneDog, he refused to provide PhoneDog with access to the Twitter account he was assigned, changed its handle to delete references to PhoneDog, and continued to use it (with its 17,000 followers) for personal purposes.Continue Reading A Reminder to Employers of the Need for Social Media Policies