Trade Secrets and Competition

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Under California law, you must bring an action for trade secret misappropriation within three years after the misappropriation has been discovered or should have been discovered.  (Cal. Civ. Code §3426.6.)  This means that you must act when you first suspect you are the victim of trade secret misappropriation rather than waiting until you can confirm…

It is sometimes difficult to distinguish arrogance or hubris from their close cousin, courage and perseverance. When a Court looks back over a plaintiff’s unsuccessful prosecution of a trade secret case for purposes of determining an award of attorney’s fees, that postmortem evaluation of the plaintiff’s case can make for some disturbing reading.

Recently, in…

California courts have long held that agreements that prohibit a former employee from hiring a former co-worker are void.  These decisions are based on California’s fundamental public policy (which is codified in Business & Professions Code section 16600) protecting workers’ rights to pursue any lawful trade or profession.  With only a few narrow exceptions, California…

Probably not.  The case law of many states is littered with what are sometimes referred to as “rolodex” cases.  These cases typically involve a departing employee who takes a rolodex (or other collection of customer or vendor information) that was created while on the former employer’s payroll.  The former employer claims the rolodex is company…

On October 21 2011, Groupon, Inc. sued two former sales managers who left their employment with Groupon to join a competing venture, Google Offers, which was allegedly started by Google after its unsuccessful attempt to buy Groupon. The lawsuit, which was filed in Chicago, Illinois, accuses the two former employees of breaching their employment agreements…