Last year’s Commercial Litigation Outlook was dominated by the promise and peril that AI poses to myriad industries. No doubt, the evolution of AI in the last year has been significant, and it is still a material...more
2/28/2025
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Class Action ,
Commercial Litigation ,
Competition ,
Data Privacy ,
False Claims Act (FCA) ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Innovation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Legal Technology ,
Machine Learning ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Risk Management ,
Securities Regulation ,
Technology Sector
In 2024, Seyfarth’s Trade Secrets, Computer Fraud & Non-Compete practice group presented a series of dynamic and insightful CLE webinars, addressing pivotal challenges confronting businesses head-on. ...more
1/3/2025
/ Competition ,
Confidential Information ,
Contract Terms ,
Employee Mobility ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Trade Secrets
Just over a month ago, employers throughout the United States breathed a sigh of relief after Judge Ada Brown in the Northern District of Texas issued a summary judgment ruling in the Ryan v. FTC litigation setting aside the...more
9/25/2024
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Appeals ,
Arbitrary and Capricious ,
Confidential Information ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Motion To Stay ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Summary Judgment
Once again surprising the country by acting ten days before her own self-appointed deadline, a federal judge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued a ruling on August 20 in the Ryan v....more
8/21/2024
/ Arbitrary and Capricious ,
Competition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
FTC Act ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Regulatory Authority ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Unfair Competition
On April 23, 2024, the FTC announced its Final Non-Compete Clause Rule (“Final Rule”), which bans post-employment non-compete clauses between employers and their workers. The Final Rule becomes effective 120 days after being...more
4/25/2024
/ Competition ,
Confidential Information ,
Contract Terms ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
FTC Act ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Labor Reform ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants
It should come as no surprise to readers of our blog that restrictive covenants are facing significant headwinds. The last decade or so has seen significant limitations on such agreements—mainly non-competes, but also other...more
By any measure, the world has changed vastly since we issued our first Commercial Litigation Outlook in 2020. We are now on our fourth installment of providing insights and flagging trends for what to expect in the coming...more
2/16/2024
/ Arbitration ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Banks ,
Class Action ,
Commercial Bankruptcy ,
Commercial Court ,
Commercial Litigation ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Copyright ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Machine Learning ,
Merger Agreements ,
Patents ,
Trademarks
Peloton has come out on top of the litigation leaderboard yet again. As we previously blogged about here, Peloton is no stranger to trade secret litigation. Peloton recently won dismissal of a “mirror image” declaratory...more
In a rare appellate decision on enforceability of non-disclosure agreements and a plaintiff’s burden to establish the existence of trade secrets, the First Circuit recently overturned a district court summary judgment order...more
Social distancing, a term which few of us had heard of before this year (despite the fact that it has been used since at least the early 2000s), is stretching into its third month....more
Legal analytics powerhouse Lex Machina recently released its 2020 Trade Secret Litigation Report, which highlights federal litigation trends in the last decade, as well as the last year specifically. ...more
In 2012, Peloton rode into the home fitness scene with its now ubiquitous at-home exercise bike, which features a tablet that allows riders to stream both live and pre-recorded classes while competing against other riders on...more
3/9/2020
/ Competition ,
Confidential Information ,
Confidentiality Agreements ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inventions ,
Metadata ,
Misappropriation ,
Non-Disclosure Agreement ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Proprietary Information ,
Software ,
Trade Secrets
For the first time in 15 years, the Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”), Massachusetts’ highest court, issued a decision analyzing the enforceability of non-solicitation covenants, the distinction between such covenants in the...more
2/5/2020
/ Business Disputes ,
Competition ,
Confidential Information ,
Contract Drafting ,
Contract Negotiations ,
Contract Terms ,
Employment Contract ,
Equitable Tolling ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Legitimate Business Interest ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Non-Solicitation Agreements ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Shareholders ,
Tolling Agreement ,
Trade Secrets ,
Written Agreements
A group of 18 state attorneys general (the “AGs”) recently filed comments with the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) in advance of a series of hearings centered on changes to antitrust and consumer protection enforcement in...more
8/5/2019
/ Antitrust Provisions ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Franchises ,
Horizontal Agreements ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Labor Regulations ,
No-Poaching ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
State and Local Government ,
State Attorneys General
As we’ve previously written about on this blog, last summer the Massachusetts legislature passed a non-compete reform bill which went into effect on October 1, 2018. Readers of this blog will recall our concerns that the new...more
As readers of this blog know, most trade secret misappropriation claims are brought in civil complaints—but a recent case out of Pennsylvania reveals how quickly the tables can turn on a civil plaintiff asserting claims...more
4/25/2019
/ ADEA ,
Class Action ,
Confidential Information ,
Confidentiality Agreements ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Employee Misconduct ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Misappropriation ,
Trade Secrets
As readers of this blog well know, there is a growing trend of state legislatures seeking to limit or outright ban non-competes....more
3/18/2019
/ Confidential Information ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws
As we’ve previously written about on this blog, last summer the Massachusetts legislature passed a non-compete reform bill which went into effect on October 1, 2018. ...more
3/1/2019
/ Choice-of-Law ,
Confidential Information ,
Contract Terms ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employment Contract ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Popular ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Trade Secrets
Many companies assume that they need to choose between patent protections or trade secret protections for their intellectual property, thereby foregoing an important tool in their arsenal to protect key company assets....more
This week, after close to a decade of “will they or won’t they” nail biters, the Massachusetts legislature finally passed a non-compete bill, just minutes before the end of the 2018 legislative session....more
8/3/2018
/ Choice-of-Law ,
Confidential Information ,
Employees ,
Employment Contract ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Garden Leave ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Independent Contractors ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Misappropriation ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Pending Legislation ,
Reformation ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws ,
UTSA ,
Venue