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Former Employee Misappropriation Appeals

WilmerHale

Readily Ascertainable - WilmerHale's Trade Secret Bulletin: May 2025

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Welcome to WilmerHale’s bulletin on recent trade secret case law and relevant news items. This month’s cases address when a prevailing party on a trade secret misappropriation claim can receive attorney’s fees, the...more

McDermott Will & Emery

Tell Us Your Secret: Case Dismissed for Failure to Identify Trade Secrets

The US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed a district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendants for the plaintiff’s failure to identify the trade secrets at issue with sufficient particularity....more

McDermott Will & Emery

Too Little Too Late: No Tenable Misappropriation Claim Based on 11-Year-Old Prototype

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In a dispute between an employer and a former employee, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed a district court’s grant of summary judgment against an employer asserting trade secret misappropriation and...more

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP

Trade Secret Misappropriation: Denial of Motion for Attorneys’ Fees under CUTSA is Not an Appealable Order

Whether a court order is appealable is often the first issue analyzed by appellate attorneys. An interlocutory order is an order issued by a court while a case is pending. These orders are not a final disposition of the case,...more

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP

Illinois Appellate Court Upholds Sanctions Against Radio Advertiser For Bad Faith Trade Secrets Claims

The recent case of Multimedia Sales & Marketing, Inc. v. Marzullo, et al., — N.E.3d —-, 2020 IL App (1st) 191790 (1st Dist. Dec. 21, 2020), demonstrates the peril that attorney fees sanctions present for litigants who bring...more

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP

California Court Strikes Down Overbroad Confidentiality Agreement as a de facto Non-Compete

Trade secrets and other proprietary information can be among a business’ most valuable assets and drive its competitive advantage. It is therefore ordinarily critical that employees be bound by an enforceable agreement that...more

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP

As A Reminder That California Has Rejected The Doctrine Of Inevitable Disclosure, Court of Appeal Rules Knowledge Of Former...

Grounded in California’s recognized hostility against restraints on competition, a recently published opinion from the California Court of Appeal, Hooked Media Grp., Inc. v. Apple Inc., held that to establish trade secret...more

Sunstein LLP

Businesses Beware: Don’t Restrain Former Employees by Exaggerating Your Trade Secret Claims

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The First Circuit seldom delivers opinions on trade secret claims, so employers should pay extra-close attention to the lessons to be learned from the court’s recent decision in TLS Management v. Rodríguez-Toledo...more

Proskauer - Law and the Workplace

Third Circuit Recognizes Trade Secret Misappropriation Claim by Party Possessing (But Not Owning) the Trade Secret

It is not often that a United States Court of Appeals issues a decision on trade secrets, much less one involving the review of a bench trial that drew legal conclusions on the scope of trade secret law and the propriety of...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

A Little Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing: Beware the Statute of Limitations in Trade Secrets Misappropriation Cases

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Seyfarth Synopsis: Knowledge that a competitor or former employee is misappropriating trade secrets is difficult to come by. At the same time, however, once a company has notice that misappropriation may be occurring, the...more

McDermott Will & Emery

Texas Trade Secret Law May Protect Free Speech, But Not In This Case

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The Third District of the Texas Court of Appeals held that an action by an employer against a former employee for breach of contract and trade secret misappropriation fell within the commercial speech exemption of the Texas...more

Rosenberg Martin Greenberg LLP

In re: Muhs “Willful and Malicious” Does Not Mean “Willful and Malicious”

In In re Muhs, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit was called upon to decide whether “the meaning of ‘willful and malicious’ under Alaska law is identical to the meaning of ‘willful and malicious’ under...more

Butler Snow LLP

Court Allows Company to Surreptitiously Monitor Former Employee’s Social Media Account to Support its Trade Secrets Claim

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A federal court of appeals recently found that there was nothing wrong with a company monitoring a departed employee’s Facebook account and using that information to pursue a trade secrets claim against four former employees....more

Genova Burns LLC

Appeals Court Tells Former Employees: Two Wrongs Don’t Make Them Right

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The Third Circuit skirted the issue as to the means by which the employer, Scherer Design Group (“SDG”) found out about the theft. In the end, the fact that an employer may have violated the common law by accessing private...more

McDermott Will & Emery

Turbulence on Breach of Employment Agreement, Trade Secret Misappropriation

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Addressing a bench trial decision concerning a former employee’s retention of confidential information and violation of a non-compete provision, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found no abandonment of the...more

Winstead PC

Texas Appellate Court Requires Strict Proof of Trade Secret Elements For Every Defendant in Evaluating TCPA Defense

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A recent Texas appellate court decision provides additional guidance for those parties litigating trade secrets in the new era of the Texas Citizens Participation Act (“TCPA”). The holding in Morgan v. Clements Fluids S....more

Fenwick & West LLP

Storage of Confidential Information on Executive’s Personal Devices Impedes Trade Secret Protection

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit considered the oft-litigated issue of what constitutes reasonable efforts to maintain secrecy of a claimed trade secret in Yellowfin Yachts v. Barker Boatworks, a case...more

Knobbe Martens

Federal Circuit Review - October 2017

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Federal Circuit Denies En Banc Rehearing in Mentor Graphics v. EVE-USA - In Mentor Graphics Corp. v. Eve-USA, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2015-1470, 2015-1554, 2015-1556, the Federal Circuit denied Synopsys’ and EVE’s petition for...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Texas Appellate Court Affirms Injunctive Relief and $2.8 Million Award in Attorney’s Fees Against Former Employee in Trade Secret...

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A Texas Court of Appeals held on August 22, 2016, that a former employer was entitled to $2.8 million in attorney’s fees against a former employee who used the employer’s information to compete against it. The Court reached...more

Proskauer - California Employment Law

California Employment Law Notes - July 2016

Employer Is Entitled To Recover $4 Million In Attorney's Fees From EEOC - CRST Van Expedited, Inc. v. EEOC, 578 U.S. ___, 136 S. Ct. 1642 (2016) - The EEOC filed suit against CRST (a trucking company) alleging...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

“Reasonable Suspicion” of Trade Secret Misappropriation Isn’t Always Enough

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Though an employer may be eager to bring a trade secret claim against former employees as soon as possible, filing suit before properly vetting the claim can lead to serious consequences: a malicious prosecution case against...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Sales Of $8,000 Stemming From Trade Secret Misappropriation Results In Liability For $1.3 Million

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At a time when an ex-employee’s newly created company was subject to an injunction prohibiting misappropriation of his former employer’s supposed trade secret, the new company allegedly used that confidential information on a...more

McDermott Will & Emery

Better Describe Trade Secret If You Want to Protect It

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New Castle Beverage, Inc. v. Spicy Beer Mix, Inc. - In an unpublished opinion, the Court of Appeal of the State of California’s Second Appellate District affirmed the lower court’s denial of a preliminary injunction...more

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