PRNewswire via COMTEX

For the first time ever, a full fragrance formula will be published and given out to visitors along with the fragrance at an exhibition in the European Parliament from January 31st to February 2nd 2012.

This will be a unique opportunity to actually contemplate a genuine full fragrance formula. Formulae have traditionally been a closely guarded secret and are an important piece of intellectual property for the fragrance industry.

Incentives to innovate, particularly within the European Union, have been weakened not only by piracy in Asia and other rapidly developing economies, but also by inconsistent trade secret protection offered by EU Member States' legislation in this area.

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In 2009, the former employees were convicted of stealing NCsoft trade secrets following a lawsuit in Korea. In 2010, they were barred from using proprietary NCsoft information, and ordered to pay damages to their former employer, although the damages ruling was overturned during the appeals process. Bluehole employees are appealing the other rulings.

Despite the legal proceedings, Tera launched in Korea last year, and is slated for a U.S. release in May. NCsoft's suit seeks damages and temporary and permanent injunctions to block the release of Tera in the U.S.

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By: Joel Kirkland, E&E reporter
ClimateWire

Devens, Mass.-based American Superconductor Corp. (AMSC) is accusing China's Sinovel Wind Group, the world's second-largest wind turbine maker, of stealing valuable trade secrets, copying protected software used for controlling turbines and canceling purchase agreements with the U.S. technology company.

Tied up in Beijing courts, the episode has the makings of industrial sabotage if the allegations are true, including that Sinovel had agreed to pay $1.7 million to a 38-year-old former AMSC employee based in Austria to funnel detailed trade secrets to China. It also ties into a political narrative in the United States, where business groups have pressed Washington to address concerns about Chinese piracy that range from intellectual property theft to hacking computers at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

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By: Jan Wolfe
Corporate Counsel

Intellectual property litigation may be recession-proof. According to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, patent holders brought 2,892 U.S. infringement lawsuits in 2010--an increase of more than 5 percent over the year before. Similarly, the number of reported trade secrets cases increased by 13 percent in 2010, according to research by blogger Russell Beck, a partner at the Boston law firm Beck Reed Riden. Another recession-proof phenomenon is Apple Inc., known lately for must-have mobile gadgets--and now, apparently, for employing legions of IP lawyers in its battle to take down Google Inc.'s Android operating system.

In light of the ever-increasing importance of IP to not just Apple, but seemingly every modern business, Corporate Counsel presents this list of the top ten IP litigation wins of 2011.

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Cypress Semiconductor Corp. said Friday (Jan. 13) it dropped a trade secret lawsuit against Maxim Integrated Products Inc.

The suit had charged Maxim with trying to gain access to Cypress's touchscreen intellectual property by targeting key Cypress employees. Cypress said it dropped the lawsuit "without prejudice" so it could be filed again if necessary.

Cypress (San Jose, Calif.) said it dropped the suit because Maxim was unsuccessful in hiring Cypress employees and making inroads into the touchscreen market.

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By: Andrew Harris
Bloomberg/Businessweek

A former Dow Chemical Co. research scientist was sentenced to five years in prison for stealing trade secrets and selling them to Chinese companies.

The sentence against Wen Chyu Liu, also known as David W. Liou, was handed down yesterday by U.S. District Judge James J. Brady in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A jury in February convicted Liu of perjury and conspiring to steal Dow trade secrets. He was indicted in 2005.

Liu, 75, of Houston worked for Dow from 1965 to 1992. At its Plaquemine, Louisiana, facility he had access to secrets related to the manufacture of chlorinated polyethylene or CPE, used in the making of vinyl siding, electrical cable jackets and industrial hoses, according to a U.S. Justice Department statement today.

"The technology that Mr. Liou was convicted of stealing belonged to Dow," the Midland, Michigan-based company said in an e-mailed statement today. "Because of his education and position within the company, Mr. Liou knew of its immense value."

By Daniel Eran Dilger

US federal District Judge William Alsup has denied Apple's effort to seal information related to its copyright infringement case against Psystar, ruling that it is not a protectable "trade secret" because it has already been widely published.

Apple attempted to seal information related to the Psystar case as a "trade secret," likely to prevent others from learning how to modify the company's Mac OS X software to enable it to run on unauthorized hardware.

According to a report by Bloomberg, Judge Alsup ruled that the information Apple sought to protect could not be given trade secret protection because "much of it" is already "publicly available by examining the software itself," already published online, or available in print.

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By Karen Gullo

(Bloomberg) -- An ex-Dow AgroSciences LLC researcher who stole trade secrets from his former employer to benefit a Chinese university was sentenced to seven years and three months in prison, prosecutors said.

Kexue Huang, 46, was sentenced yesterday by U.S. District Judge William T. Lawrence in Indianapolis, according to an e- mailed statement from U.S. Attorney Joseph Hogsett's office.

Huang, a Chinese national, pleaded guilty in October to economic espionage. He also admitted to stealing trade secrets from the Minneapolis-based grain distributor Cargill Inc., the U.S. Justice Department said in October. Financial losses from his conduct exceed $7 million, the U.S. said.

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Associated Press
USA Today

Connecticut's open records watchdog agency has softened its position on whether the University of Connecticut can claim its season ticket holders' lists are confidential trade secrets.

A Freedom of Information Commission attorney told state Supreme Court justices Monday that UConn probably does have the right to have confidential trade secrets after all, such as in bioscience research.

The FOI Commission says two other factors should make the lists public: because general interest outweighs UConn's need for confidentiality, and because UConn never showed the records were unavailable elsewhere.

By Mark Jaffe
The Denver Post

Here is the dilemma with the fracking fluids used in oil drilling:

One ingredient found in some of the liquids is aldehyde -- which gives cilantro its fragrance and is also in formaldehyde.

While other ingredients in the fluid include more-detailed explanations, when it comes to the aldehyde and some other components of the fluid, that data is simply listed as "Confidential Business Information."

"You'd want to know if they're putting an herb or a poison down an oil well near your house," said Mike Freeman, an attorney with the environmental law group Earthjustice.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is set to hold a hearing Monday on a proposed rule requiring disclosure of the chemicals in fracking fluids.

A key battle at Monday's hearing will center on the oil and gas industry's use of "trade secrets" to limit disclosure for some of those ingredients.

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By: Chris Kanaracus
IDG News

Former SAP partner Wellogix is accusing the vendor of stealing its trade secrets and swindling it out of lucrative software projects, according to a lawsuit Wellogix filed last week in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Wellogix's software is "a highly valuable tool, capable of saving oil and gas operators and service companies millions of dollars per year, which leads to an increase in production of millions of dollars per year," the complaint states. "Wellogix was originally the only company capable of providing this type of software technology."

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By: PAUL FOY
SALT LAKE CITY (AP)

Federal prosecutors have charged a scientist with stealing trade secrets from a Utah drug company where he worked.

FBI spokeswoman Debbie Dujanovic Bertram says it's the first time authorities have filed industrial espionage charges in Utah.

The federal complaint says 42-year-old Prabhu Mohapatra emailed drug recipes to a
brother-in-law in India who was setting up a competing company.

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By John Letzing
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

A company called Hob Knob LLC has alleged Zynga Inc. misappropriated trade secrets and used them to launch the Zynga Direct service last month, a development that comes as the social-gaming firm gears up for a widely anticipated initial public offering of shares.

In a complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Hob Knob says Zynga signed a nondisclosure agreement in February, enabling it to review Hob Knob's proprietary information with the intention of either buying Hob Knob's technology or partnering with the firm.

Florida-based Hob Knob says Zynga ultimately said it wasn't interested in the technology, only to later use Hob Knob's trade secrets to help it launch Zynga Direct in violation of the NDA.

The Zynga Direct service, which saw a high-profile unveiling last month, is seen as a key means for Zynga to independently distribute its games to users.

San Francisco-based Zynga currently depends to a large extent on closely held Facebook Inc. to distribute popular games such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars among the social-networking service's users.

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Associated Press

The trial began this week of a Chinese-born American woman accused of stealing secrets from a cellphone company knowing they would likely end up in the hands of China's military. The case highlights persistent fears about Chinese espionage.

A prosecutor described Hanjuan Jin as a University of Notre Dame graduate who rose through Motorola to become a senior software engineer, only to violate the company's trust by stealing documents on confidential technology and trying to flee on a one-way ticket to China.

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By: Angela Moscaritolo

Foreign spies, including U.S. allies, are increasingly launching digital assaults against the nation to steal sensitive economic secrets, according to a report issued Thursday by the U.S. Office of National Counterintelligence Executive (UNSEX).

The report, which UNSEX prepares for Congress every two years, details industrial espionage and economic information and technology theft between 2009 and 2011. China and Russia were specifically called out as the world's most prolific perpetrators of economic espionage against the United States.

Both countries view themselves as strategic competitors of America, and they carry out such activities to support their own economic development and security, according to the report, compiled with input from at least 13 other U.S. intelligence agencies.

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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

OXFORD, Maine -- The state Gambling Control Board has ruled that releasing the names of the investors behind a casino under construction in Oxford would not be a violation of trade secrets or of the owners' privacy.

The control board ruled Tuesday that the names as well as their percentage of ownership could be made public, despite the objections of lawyers for Black Bear, who claimed disclosing the information would violate privacy.

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By: Sue Zeidler
Reuters

A damages expert asserted Trust Company of the West (TCW) is owed $81.7 million in royalties due to trade secret theft as the high-profile civil case pitting the asset mangement firm against its former chief investment officer Jeffrey Gundlach resumed on Tuesday.

Both sides sued each other in one of the most contentious battles to grip the multitrillion bond fund world after Gundlach was fired from TCW in December 2009 and set up a rival firm, DoubleLine Capital.

In September a Los Angeles jury ordered TCW to pay Gundlach $66.7 million in wages, to be divided by Gundlach between himself and his co-defendants. Gundlach and his associates had sought hundreds of millions of dollars.