A California businessman, Walter Liew, was recently sentenced to 15 years in federal prison after being found guilty by a jury on charges of trade secret theft, economic espionage, witness tampering and making false statements. Mr. Liew, who had contracts with a Chinese company Pangang Group, was charged with stealing trade secrets from DuPont that
trade secrets
Attorney Fee Awards in Trade Secret Cases and “Local Community” Rates
As readers of this blog may know, a party prevailing in a trade secret misappropriation case may be entitled to reasonable attorney’s fees if that party can show either that the claim was brought by the plaintiff in bad faith or that the defendant was guilty of willful and malicious misappropriation. The award of attorney’s…
The Truth About the “Exceptional” Remedy
It is a truism that preliminary injunctions are “rare” and “exceptional” remedies. But rarity is context specific. As a percentage of cars made, Cobra GTs are rare. If you are standing in the plant where they are made, however, they are anything but rare. So, while it may well be true that preliminary injunctions, as…
Downloading is Not Necessarily Misappropriating
One of the key pieces of evidence a plaintiff in a trade secret case usually looks for is the downloading of company information from its computers prior to a former employee departing and joining a competitor. Generally, this “smoking gun” type of evidence shows that the employee on his or her last day accesses and…
Trade Secret Theft Gets One Year in Prison
An employee of a Bay Areas executive recruiting firm who left to start his own firm was sentenced to one year in prison after being found guilty of trade secret theft and unauthorized computer access crimes. David Nosal was a former managing director at Korn/Ferry International and left in 2004 to start his own firm. …