The Briefing: Trademark Basics - Protecting Names, Logos, and Brands in Entertainment
The Rise of OTAs in Defense Contracting: Opportunities, Risks, and What Contractors Need to Know
Money-Saving Licensing Tips for Startups
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Trending Now: An IP Podcast - Cease and Desist Letters: Protecting Your Intellectual Property the Right Way
PODCAST: PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Trending Now: An IP Podcast - Cease and Desist Letters: Protecting Your Intellectual Property the Right Way
A Counterintuitive Approach to Winning Without Litigation: One-on-One with Haley Morrison
SkadBytes Podcast | Tech’s Shifting Landscape: Five Trends Shaping the Conversation
Tips for Conducting a Trade Secret Assessment with Rob Jensen
Will I Get Sued if I Create Another Hospital Drama? — No Infringement Intended Podcast
Essential Steps to Sell Your Business
Mickey Mouse: un ratón con abogado
(Podcast) The Briefing: The Ninth Circuit Puts the Brakes on Eleanor’s Copyright Claim
The Briefing: The Ninth Circuit Puts the Brakes on Eleanor’s Copyright Claim
Unexpected Paths to IP Law with Dan Young and Colin White
Why Can't I Clean the Graffiti Off My Walls? — No Infringement Intended Podcast
(Podcast) The Briefing: Trademark Smoked: The Fall of General Cigar’s COHIBA Registration
The Briefing: Trademark Smoked: The Fall of General Cigar’s COHIBA Registration
PODCAST: Williams Mullen's Trending Now: An IP Podcast - NCAA Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) Update – Effects of House Settlement
How IP Can Fuel Your Startup's Growth
Your employees can be your company’s most valuable asset — but they also represent your greatest vulnerability when it comes to protecting confidential information and intellectual property (IP). To protect confidential...more
In the digital age, businesses may assume that firewalls, login credentials and restricted access are enough to shield proprietary data. But a recent federal court decision shows that a “trade secret” under the Defend Trade...more
The rise of artificial intelligence has brought both opportunities and challenges to the workplace. However, a growing trend of employees using free or unauthorized AI tools poses significant risks, from security breaches to...more
Kilpatrick’s Katie Barton, Nena Bains, and Destiny Williams recently presented a webinar in partnership with the Association of Corporate Council on the topic of “Protecting Your IP When People are Coming and Going.”...more
Spring has arrived, and in addition to cleaning, it’s a good time to reassess how your company is handling its trade secrets. Far from being static, trade secret innovations, processes, and data evolve over time. Business...more
What exactly is data exfiltration, and why should organizations be concerned about it? Data exfiltration is the movement or migration of company-owned trade secrets or intellectual property outside of the enterprise. It...more
In 2016, the Defend Trade Secret Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1836 (the “DTSA”), passed Congress and went into effect. At its heart, it effectively codified the Uniform Trade Secrets Act at the federal level, creating a federal cause of...more
Legal regimes are shifting, including in the intellectual property world as businesses increasingly seek the protection of trade secrets rather than patents to secure their confidential information. When the Defend Trade...more
On May 7, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a Final Rule that renders invalid non-compete clauses in standard employment agreements. 16 C.F.R. § 910. Although some limited exceptions apply, this new regulation...more
Late last month, the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) hosted a panel on Trade Secret Protection in Life Sciences: Strategies for Success. In today's rapidly evolving business environment, trade secrets are becoming...more
Love is in the air. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, we’re writing to share some heartfelt news about a recent change in California law that might just make your heart skip a beat....more
The U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas granted in part a plaintiff’s emergency motion for expedited discovery to allow forensic imaging of the defendant’s employees’ laptops to search for evidence of trade secret...more
Generally, an employer owns all rights in software code created by its employee in the scope of their employment. As outlined in the last edition of this series, this general rule typically applies to independent contractors...more
New York’s recent addition of Section 203-f to Labor Law declares unenforceable any provisions in existing and future employment agreements requiring an employee to assign to the employer those inventions developed entirely...more
California has done it again! We reported last month concerning California’s new non-compete law that furthers the state’s protections for employee mobility and seeks to void out of state employee non-compete agreements....more
The construction industry is full of valuable business information including customer lists, pricing information, project budgets, and more. The value of such information may be lost if it becomes known to a competitor or the...more
Layoffs are here and with them comes an often-overlooked threat: trade secret misappropriation. Thousands of tech workers have been laid off over the last year, and 61% of business leaders say their organizations will likely...more
In July 2022, the Seventh Circuit issued an opinion making it clear that employers must put in place written invention assignment agreements if they want to ensure ownership of employee inventions...more
Most lawyers know, at least generally, that IP infringement and misappropriation actions are subject to various statutes of limitations. Patent actions need to be brought within six years, copyright actions within three, and...more
Employers (Montana-based or otherwise) obviously cannot brand their employees and/or toss them off a dark cliff, even in the interest of protecting legitimate business interests such as trade secrets or customer...more
Confidentiality and non-disclosure provisions in employment agreements can be a meaningful measure to help companies protect valuable intellectual property, including trade secrets. This article addresses certain important...more
In Part II of this newsletter, we continue our review of significant developments, cases, and verdicts in 2020. Misappropriation - Inevitable Disclosure - Illinois - The State of Illinois follows the “inevitable disclosure”...more
A Massachusetts Federal Court recently enjoined the former Director of Research and Development and Quality Assurance of National Fish & Seafood, Inc. (“National Fish”) from working for a competing seafood supplier based in...more
The Defend Trade Secrets Act, signed into law on May 11, 2016, includes a whistleblower immunity notice provision. An employer that wants to preserve maximum recoveries for misappropriation against an employee should take...more