Mark Anderson - Sacramento Business Journal

An El Dorado Hills technology worker accused of stealing trade secrets with military applications and offering them to foreign buyers for six figures in cash entered a guilty plea in Sacramento Friday, prosecutors said.

Allen Cotten, 53, pleaded guilty to theft of trade secrets in U.S. District Court and admitted to a two-year scheme to steal and sell microwave technology, the local U.S. Attorney's office said in a news release. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Pings said Cotten worked for Genesis Microwave Inc. in El Dorado Hills, and admitted that beginning in February 2004 he began to steal plans, designs, parts and specifications for components known as logarithmic video amplifiers. The technology has military applications for radar jamming, guidance, countermeasures and locating enemy signals during combat.

Cotten sold trade secrets and offered them for sale to foreign governments and foreign military contractors through February 2006, prosecutors said; evidence and Cotten's statements indicated he sold or was seeking to sell parts and information for a total amount of $250,000.

The case was the product of an investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security.

Cotten is scheduled to be sentenced by United States District Judge Edward J. Garcia May 16 at 10 a.m.

Keith Regan - LinuxInsider

Before Friday's Wikileaks hearing, the ACLU said it planned to argue that the original order failed to consider the public interest. "The public has a right to receive information and ideas, especially ones concerning the public interest," said Aden Fine, a senior staff attorney with the organization's First Amendment Working Group.

The controversy began when Bank Julius Baer, one of the largest Swiss banks, asked the court to intervene to stop the dissemination of scores of documents that had been posted to the site by a former employee who claimed they showed a pattern of money-laundering activity.

Shifting to ‘first-inventor-to-file’ will dramatically affect the individual inventor, small firms and universities

Paul Remus

The Patent Reform Act of 2007, which has already passed the House of Representatives and is now being considered by the full Senate after receiving a favorable report from the Senate Judiciary Committee. It contains a number of provisions that will make it more costly to obtain and defend patents.

...

Opponents of the change raise concerns that a first-inventor-to-file rule will encourage premature, and possibly inaccurate, technology disclosures in a race to the Patent Office. Opponents also note that such a race is particularly burdensome on individual inventors, small firms and universities.

A number of states have concluded that individuals and small firms are, in general, a significant source of innovation. These small entities also rely more heavily on the patent system than larger companies. Larger companies have alternative means to develop and protect their technology. These include trade secrets, ready access to markets, trademarks, speed of development and goodwill. Small entities do not have the ability to use these means.

Associated Press

SALEM, Ore. — Payments in the sports-marketing contracts of Oregon's two large universities are trade secrets, and the schools can keep the amounts secret, Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers said this week.

The secrecy gives the University of Oregon and Oregon State an advantage over marketing contractors and other schools, an opinion from Myer's office said, and the value of the revenue the schools get as a result outweighs the public interest in disclosing the information.

STACI HUPP / The Dallas Morning News

A Plano high school principal will keep his job despite allegations that he gave copies of a college entrance exam to a Dallas test-prep company where his brother works.

"I'm excited to be back," said Michael Novotny, 35, principal of Jasper High School.

School officials said they reinstated Mr. Novotny on Friday because he's not a target of a lawsuit that objects to the release of the test and didn't violate district or state rules.
...

Karen Dillard, who owns the company that bears her name, hasn't denied copying tests but she has denied wrongdoing.

Ms. Dillard has said she believed she was following a law that allows the use of copyrighted materials for teaching purposes.

Ms. Dillard has said the College Board, which also sells test-prep materials, seized on an honest mistake in a bid to ruin her company's reputation and gain a competitive edge.

In a counter lawsuit earlier this week, Karen Dillard College Prep accused the College Board of defamation, unfair competition and stealing her trade secrets, among other things.

Sacramento Business Journal - Mark Anderson

An El Dorado Hills technology worker accused of stealing trade secrets with military applications and offering them to foreign buyers for six figures in cash entered a guilty plea in Sacramento Friday, prosecutors said.

Allen Cotten, 53, pleaded guilty to theft of trade secrets in U.S. District Court and admitted to a two-year scheme to steal and sell microwave technology, the local U.S. Attorney's office said in a news release. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Pings said Cotten worked for Genesis Microwave Inc. in El Dorado Hills, and admitted that beginning in February 2004 he began to steal plans, designs, parts and specifications for components known as logarithmic video amplifiers. The technology has military applications for radar jamming, guidance, countermeasures and locating enemy signals during combat.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.- Agilent Technologies (NYSE: A) today announced it has filed litigation against Advanced Materials Technology Inc. (AMT) in the Delaware Court of Chancery to protect confidential and proprietary information relating to its high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) technology.

The complaint contends that three former Agilent employees, now with AMT, breached the confidentiality of their employment agreements, misappropriated Agilent trade secrets and breached their fiduciary duties with respect to Agilent’s HPLC intellectual property. The litigation filing alleges that Agilent trade secrets and confidential information were used by AMT in developing its Halo HPLC columns.

Leslie Lyon

"The number one de-motivator in the world of work, is not knowing what is expected" -Your Staff Contracts should be in place before you begin recruiting. And if you are an existing business, it's never too late to introduce these important documents NOW.

...

10. Confidentiality Agreements -This contract may also be referred to as a Non-Disclosure, Privacy, or Trade Secrets Agreement.

These documents need to be in place to ensure Employees do not divulge your confidential information to anyone else, particularly your competitors, or use it for their own gain at some point in the future. It is usually only necessary to create a non-reciprocal or unilateral agreement, whereby only the employee is not allowed to disclose confidential information of the employers. This document should always be developed with the assistance of your lawyer.

Trade Secrets are anything that you consider to be your business advantages, such as your client base, financials, research & development, service procedures, ingredients, etc. If you consider them pertinent to maintaining your leading edge in the business, you must treat them as such in order for this contract to be useful in a court of law. This may mean restricting access and labeling specific information with signage like: "Not to be used outside of the Spa"; or "For your Eyes Only".

Tim Leberecht

Johanna Blakley, Deputy Director at the USC Norman Lear Center, will moderate one of the most provocative panel discussions at SXSW Interactive next weekend: "Will Tomorrow's World Still Need Designers?" Panelists include Alonzo Canada (Jump Associates), David Merkoski (frog design), and Helen Walters (BusinessWeek). In a blog post, Blakley has articulated some points that challenge the raison d'etre of a whole profession and will likely spark a heated debate:

"At Davos this year, four luminaries in the world of design were asked to predict what the future of design will be. The themes that arose from this discussion seemed to coalesce into two distinct categories that I'd venture to call 'internal' and 'external.' On the one hand, the speakers emphasized the importance of privacy and personal convenience -- a degree of customization we've not seen before, that will first be available, as usual, to the world's wealthiest 10%. Designers will create ingenious objects with hidden multi-functionality, devices that, for one reason or another, cloak what they can really do. We'll also see designers pressed to find ways to better protect trade secrets and the valued expertise of the genius creator -- in other words, designers will be designing objects that actually enhance their own professional lives and buttress their privileged position in society.

Debra Duncan
VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH

Many of the products of tomorrow are being invented today in the Alle-Kiski Valley.

Several of our Top 10 employers have research facilities here, in addition to manufacturing operations.

Hundreds of people spend their day trying to find a better use for aluminum, a more sun-resistant deck stain or a better way to help diagnose a medical condition.

...

All of these research facilities are designed to keep Valley businesses on the cutting edge of products in their fields.

Of course, no business wants to give away its trade secrets to competitors. So most are tight-lipped about their research, and it may take years to develop a process or product.

Suzanne Deffree
Electronic News

Microsoft Corp http://www.microsoft .com today made significant changes to its business model, taking steps toward open-source initiatives and sharing some of its application programming interfaces (API) and communications protocols free of charge with developers outside its corporate structure.

The Redmond, Wash-based software giant said it is immediately implementing four new interoperability principles and corresponding actions across its high-volume business products: ensuring open connections; promoting data portability; enhancing support for industry standards; and fostering more open engagement with customers and the industry, including open-source communities. Microsoft named Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and Office SharePoint Server 2007, and future versions of all these products as the high-volume business products impacted by today's actions.

Darren Murph

We've seen some pretty shady dealings from disgruntled ex-employees in the past, but this one may have skyrocketed into the upper echelon of tales of corporate deceit. As the story goes, a 49-year old man known only as Jeong felt the need to copy over some 1,182 top secret plasma display technology-related files onto his personal drive before waltzing out of LG's doors for the final time in July of 2005. A few months later, Chinese manufacturer Changhong-Orion PDP-Chaihong welcomed him with open arms and paid him a fat salary of roughly $300,000 a year (not to mention a few perks: free apartment, vehicle etc.), while casually accepting both the aforementioned files and continued insider leaks at LG -- information supposedly valued at over a billion dollars. But despite Jeong's arrest upon his last return home to Korea, Changhong is still apparently on schedule to produce plasma panels based on LG's technology come this December. Can you say: hot water over international trade-secret law?

Amy Harder

Open government advocates received a disappointing setback last month when the Oregon Attorney General's Office issued an opinion declaring that the state's two largest public universities can keep sports broadcast and marketing rights contracts confidential under the state public records law.

The opinion, issued Feb. 25, held that the University of Oregon and Oregon State do not need to disclose the contracts because they're considered "trade secrets," which are exempt under Oregon's public records law.

"[T]he public interest in maintaining the confidentiality of the redacted information outweighs the public interest in compelling its disclosure," wrote Deputy Attorney General Peter Shepherd.

The nine-page opinion came in response to a petition from The Oregonian, after the two schools released past and present media marketing contracts with the guaranteed annual amounts each receives redacted.

"The state has an economic interest in maximizing payments made to its universities pursuant to sports marketing contracts," Shepherd wrote. "In sum, would-be contractors who know exactly what the UO or OSU agreed to accept in the past might offer less than they otherwise would have offered."

Open government advocates see the issue quite differently. Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, said the basic concept behind keeping secret this type of public information is absurd.

"Most people would find it rather strange that their government could enter into a contract for a lot of money on their behalf and keep the information about that deal a secret," Scheer said. "And, some might insist that even if it is a confidential contract that the state do what it can to release that information."

Citing the "trade secrets" exemption raises concerns among advocates of open government because the University of Oregon had, prior to redacting the financial amounts of the requested contracts, released other financial amounts regarding marketing revenues for legislative purposes when it was seeking to build a new basketball arena.

This information, Scheer said, appears to be very similar to the information the university, as well as Oregon State, refused to release to The Oregonian.

"If they let out some information about supposedly confidential contracts but not other information," Scheer said, "then that undercuts the legal claim that what they're still holding on to is a trade secret."

In response to such criticism, Shepherd said the attorney general's office is only concerned with what the schools are legally allowed to do, which does include keeping the information private, even if they lawfully can choose to disclose it.

"The basic principle of Oregon's public records law states that an agency can choose to release information even if it could have asserted an exemption," Shepherd said.

Laurie Hieb, the executive director of the Oregon Newspapers Publishers Association, said that since the schools cited the "trade secrets" exemption, the only way to effectively get around this issue is to change the law. She also said that not knowing what it is about these contracts that make the government deem them "trade secrets" complicates the issue.

"This always sends a wave of fear through the media any time there are any issues like this," Hieb said. "It's ironic that it's called a trade secret because the word 'secret' is definitely something that we work against having in government. It's hard to make a judgment call if you don't know, which is why we fight every day for open government."

Jedediah Wakefield

Intellectual property cases often require extensive up-front investigation. California trade secret plaintiffs must identify misappropriated secrets with "reasonable particularity" before commencing discovery, and plaintiffs in patent cases must often identify preliminary infringement contentions at the outset of the case. To help analyze the strength of IP cases, and to obtain evidence of infringement, lawyers frequently retain private investigators. Others do so to avoid the agony of trying to enforce discovery requests.

While the need for early investigation in many IP cases is clear, the ethical limits on the use of private investigators are sometimes ill defined. The controversy surrounding the widely reported Hewlett Packard investigation — and the role played by lawyers in that matter — raised broader questions about the ethical limits on the use of private investigators by attorneys.

The following hypothetical illustrates some of the unsettled issues raised by the use of investigators. Your client, a software company, has heard rumors that a group of former employees have created a new company and are selling a "knock off" of your client’s flagship product. Your client is concerned that its new rival has infringed its copyrights and misappropriated trade secrets. Word on the street also has it that the new company is infringing your client’s trademarks, falsely identifying the new software as the "next version" of your client’s product. Your client has sent a threatening letter, demanding assurances and access to the competing product. The response — from an outside lawyer — tells your client to pound sand. Your client has asked you to investigate potential trade secret misappropriation in the product, and to find out whether the competitor is engaged in trademark infringement.

One frequently used investigative technique in such cases is to have an investigator go "undercover," typically by posing as a customer. In this hypothetical, an undercover "customer" might be given infringing marketing material, and potentially purchase or obtain an evaluation copy of the product itself. While this technique does not involve the controversial issue of "pretexting" to gain personal information, it potentially implicates ethical prohibitions on the use of deceptive conduct and attorney contact with represented parties.

Todd Ruger

SARASOTA COUNTY -- Court fines have climbed to more than $500,000 against the company that makes Florida's breath-test machines, part of a legal fight that is stalling more than 100 local drunken-driving cases.

Kentucky-based CMI Inc. faces the fines and the possibility of losing future sales as defense attorneys demand to see computer software that runs the Intoxilyzer 8000.

...

Minnesota officials filed a federal lawsuit against CMI to divulge the code, which the company says is a protected trade secret. Lawyers in Ohio say similar machines there would bring a glut of challenges...CMI says the source code is a trade secret that can be exploited by competitors. Divulging it would do nothing to prove the accuracy of the machines, CMI says. In October, the company said it would allow "controlled viewing" of the source code with a protection order and nondisclosure agreements.

JAMIE KELLY Getting Sir Elton John back to Missoula for an encore performance comes with a $75,000 bill. That's how much money John and his agency are requiring the University of Montana to raise for John's AIDS Foundation, which has raised $125 million for AIDS-related work in 55 countries since 1992. The requirement is spelled out in a memorandum of understanding between UM and the Howard Rose Agency, which represents John, who will perform a sold-out show on April 11 at the Adams Center. Two months ago, the Missoulian requested a copy of that memo, but was told it was a “trade secret” and therefore not a public document. Since then, the UM student newspaper - the Montana Kaimin - has obtained the memo and editorially questioned the alleged “secrecy” of the deal.

Topics covered include IT-related copyright, trademark, trade secret and patent litigation, including software/business method patents; proving infringement; Markman hearings and claim construction; disputes involving the Internet and emerging technologies; evolving privacy and data security considerations; electronic discovery, computer forensics and protective orders; alternative dispute resolution; and emerging areas, such as "click fraud," VoIP-related issues, and computer trespass.

Plaintiff H & R Block of Missouri claimed that Gelray Gainey acted in contravention of their agreement, when Gainey sold his tax preparation business to H&R Block.
H & R Block sued Gainey for breach of contract. Gainey did not answer the complaint, thus the case proceeded in default.

H & R Block stated it employed the defendant since July 2006 when it had purchased his tax preparation business. Gainey left the business, and opened a new tax preparation business, accoring to plaintiff's counsel. In opening his business he violated several employment agreements, by using H & R Block trade secrets, client lists and other confidential information. Plaintiff's counsel produced business records of the defendant's signed employment agreements.

IntoMobile

Research In Motion is all about getting its BlackBerry smartphones distributed for fleet-use in enterprise environments. Unfortunately, that means that corporate users will have to opt for the camera-less BlackBerry 8800 series. It would be a bad day to have corporate secrets walk out the door inside some cameraphone's flash memory.

On the one hand, nixing the camera is a good security measure. On the other hand, corporate users won't have a camera to play with when outside the office.

RIM Patent application uses lock and key to secure caera in BlackBerry

So, RIM has come up with a novel interesting old-school solution to keeping those trade-secrets from ever getting their picture taken. The latest patent application from the Canadian outfit outlines a method to lock-down and disable a smartphone's camera with the help of a key. No, it's not some high-tech encryption key, it's your plain-old lock-and-key system.

When the key is inserted, the handset lets you take pictures with abandon. Remove the key and… not so much. Sounds secure enough - unless the key looks like the one shown in the diagram. Let's see if this particular patent application makes it from drawing board to real-life.

LEDs

The former Color Kinetics, now part of Philips, is alleged patent infringement by LED Effects, now part of Lighting Science Group. The latter has responded with a complaint that alleges, among other things, misappropriation of trade secrets by Philips.

Asher Moses

The toughest two weeks of the career of the Wikipedia co-founder, Jimmy Wales, just got tougher, with a former chief scientist at one of the world's biggest technology companies claiming Mr Wales traded Wiki edits for donations.

Jeff Merkey, a former computer scientist at Novell, claims Mr Wales told him in 2006 that for a substantial donation from Mr Merkey, he would edit his Wikipedia entry - which included details of lawsuits involving Mr Merkey including one brought by Novell alleging misappropriation of trade secrets - to make it more favourable.

Lorene Yue

A Lake County businessman has accused the Big Ten Conference of breaking a confidential agreement when it allegedly stole his idea to create the Big Ten Network.

Robert Welsh, who once donned the Penn State Nittany Lion mascot outfit, filed his suit on Wednesday in U.S. District Court claiming that the conference violated the Illinois Trade Secrets Act and breached an agreement to keep confidential a business plan he presented a decade ago. The Big Ten Network, which debuted in August, also was named in the suit.

Nolan M. Goldberg

Information technology departments of sophisticated organizations are already aware that each party to a litigation in the United States is obligated to collect its own discoverable electronic information to be produced to the opposing party. A recent change to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34(a) makes clear that this honor system is not without limitation, and in certain situations, pursuant to a court order, a requesting party may be permitted to collect an opponent's electronic data, and associated metadata, itself. Such inspections, as they are known, can range from creating an image of a single computer to a full forensic examination of a network. The assistance of an organization's IT personnel in navigating these situations is critical, first in providing the technical guidance necessary to oppose the request, and then in assisting in conducting the inspection if the request is granted.

...

Another way to oppose a request to inspect is to show the willingness and capability to run the requested searches, typically using outside experts in conjunction with internal IT personnel. While courts have disagreed on this issue, at least one court has denied a request to inspect on this basis, noting that the responding party had agreed to have its own expert perform the search, and the court had "no basis to question this representation." Calyon v. Mizuho Sec. USA Inc., No. 07CIV02241RODF, 2007 WL 1468889, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. May 18, 2007). However, see Cenveo, 2007 WL 442387, at *2 (allowing inspection of hard drives of ex-employees who were alleged to have misappropriated trade secrets despite the defendant's willingness to conduct its own inspection and production because of "the close relationship between plaintiff's claims and defendants' computer equipment").

Trade Secrets and Confidential Information Security Risk and Misappropriation
by Ryan Conion

Publisher: Gower Publishing Ltd (August 28, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0566086557

Global Secrets: Global Trade Secret Protection (Globalization & Law)
by C. D. Freedman

Publisher: Ashgate Pub Co (June 28, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0754620913

From our friends at JurisNotes.com

CardioNet, Inc. v. LifeWatch Corp.

Cardio sued LWC, Lehman, Ament, and Konarzewska (collectively "LWC") for misappropriation of trade secrets and related claims. The court granted in part and denied in part LWC's motion to dismiss.

Cardio and LWC are competitors in the heart monitoring business. Cardio developed a medical device known as the Mobile Cardiac Outpatient Telemetry ("MCOT") that monitors a patient's heart throughout the day. The MCOT is not sold to patients, but is rather prescribed by doctors for short-term use. As a condition to activate the device, patients must agree to promptly return the device to Cardio, solely use the device for heart monitoring, and refrain from tampering with or reverse engineering the device. LWC acquired two MCOTs by obtaining false prescriptions for LWC employees Lehman and Ament. LWC employee Dr. Konarzewska prescribed the MCOT for Lehman and Ament. While using the MCOT, Lehman faked a heart attack using a cardiac simulator. In addition, Lehman and Ament failed to timely return their MCOT kits.

LWC argued that Cardio's conversion, fraud, intentional interference, and unfair competition claims were preempted by the Illinois Trade Secrets Act. Regarding the conversion claim, it was clear that Cardio alleged conversion of two property items: the MCOT kits and the trade secret information. Cardio's claim that LWC converted its kits was not subject to preemption because the conversion claim was not based on the misappropriation of trade secrets. Rather, the claim was based on LWC's misappropriation of the kits themselves. The kits had intrinsic value apart from information they contained. The kits were not for sale, were Cardio's central product, and were available only through limited means. However, the conversion claim was preempted to the extent that it alleged conversion of confidential, proprietary, and trade secret information derived from the contents of the kits. The information contained in the kits was comprised of technical engineering data that fell squarely in the Act's definition of a trade secret.

Because the harm of fraudulently obtaining the kits was separate from the harm of obtaining trade secrets, the fraud claim with regard to the kits was not preempted. To the extent that the fraud claim was based on fraudulent appropriation of trade secret information contained in the kits, it was preempted. The intentional interference claim was not preempted because the tort alleged was the interference with Lehman's and Ament's contract with Cardio regarding the kits. The intentional interference claim did not depend of the existence of a trade secret. In contrast, the unfair competition claim inextricably depended on the allegation that LWC possessed and used information obtained from examination and testing of the kits.

Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner

An employee who misappropriates trade secrets from his former employer's computer system is not liable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), absent a showing of "damage" or "impairment" to the database or computer system. Garelli Wong & Assoc. v. Nichols, No. 07-6227, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3288 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 16, 2008). The district court dismissed the plaintiff's CFAA claims based upon a failure to properly allege damage to its computer system, and declined to exercise jurisdiction over the plaintiff's remaining state law claims. The court held that misappropriation of a trade secret through the use of a computer alone does not, without more, constitute "damage" under the CFAA (i.e., "impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information"). The court concluded that the defendant's unauthorized acts of copying and e-mailing proprietary computer files neither impaired the integrity of the plaintiff's database nor caused any interruption in service.

Opinion http://www.thelen.com/tlu/GarelliWongVNichols.pdf

From 2 No. 9 ADVSECOMP 6
Advising Start-Up & Emerging Companies

Trade Secret Value

If the process by which a company makes a product or offers a service is not readily ascertainable, that process may be subject to trade secret protection. Although for some inventions, trade secret protection is more desirable than patent protection, maintaining a process as a trade secret--as opposed to a patent-protected invention--is not without risk.

First, if a competitor develops the same process independently--an absolute defense to a trade secret misappropriation claim--there is nothing that the company can do to stop its use. Independent development generally is not a defense to patent infringement, however.

Second, the company runs the risk that a competitor who develops the process independently may elect to patent the process itself, thereby having the process “patented out from under” it. That is, the company's prior use may or may not be a sufficient defense in a patent infringement claim. Nor will the prior use qualify as prior art because the invention, having been maintained as a trade secret, was not in the public domain.

Third, by not pursuing patent protection immediately, the company may foreclose its ability to obtain a patent in the future. Using a trade secret process to produce a commercial product generally starts the clock ticking on the one-year statutory bar for on-sale bar purposes. Accordingly, under § 102(b), a company's invention will not be eligible for U.S. patent protection if more than one year has elapsed from the time the commercial product was first sold or offered for sale.
In light of the risks associated with maintaining an invention as a trade secret, the decision to file a patent application requires a company to balance the value of a patent's 20-year term with the potentially indefinite term of a trade secret, and to consider the likelihood that a competitor will stumble on and patent the trade secret.

Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews

How can an advertising platform best target its readers without knowing something personal about them? Today in the UK, there's a growing public outcry for the details on what, from one coalition's perspective, may be a trade secret.

DIANE C. WALSH
Newhouse News Service

Sequoia Voting Systems, the manufacturer of New Jersey's vot ing machines, threatened to sue Union County if officials allow a Princeton University computer scientist to examine machines where errors occurred during the presidential primary, officials said yesterday.

A Sequoia executive, Edwin Smith, put Union County Clerk Joanne Rajoppi on notice that an independent analysis would violate the licensing agreement between his firm and the county. In a two- page letter, Smith also argued the voting machine software is a Se quoia "trade secret" and cannot be handed over to any third party.

72 Cal.Rptr.3d 600 (2008)

Court of Appeal, Second District,
Division 8.
CYTODYN, INC., Plaintiff and Appellant,
v.
AMERIMMUNE PHARMACEUTICALS, INC., et al., Defendants and Respondents.
No. B187661.
Feb. 20, 2008.

A patent licensor brought action against transferee of license, and transferee's officers and directors, for unjust enrichment based on alleged misappropriation of its patents and trademarks, and requested exemplary damages for misappropriation of trade secrets. The Superior Court, Los Angeles County, No. BC 290154, Andria K. Richey , J., granted summary judgment for defendants, and awarded attorney fees for claim of misappropriation of trade secrets made in bad faith. Licensor appealed.

The Court of Appeal, Rubin , J., held that the complaint did not assert claim for misappropriation of trade secrets...

SHARON K. SANDEEN
Hamline University School of Law
Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review, Vol. 12, 2008

Abstract:

In 1973, the American Bar Association, Section on Patent, Trademark and Copyright faced a dilemma. For more than six years it had worked to develop a uniform law to govern trade secrets. In 1972, its efforts bore fruit when a draft uniform trade secret law was presented to the National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws. At the time, it was thought that states could regulate in the area of trade secrets without interfering with federal patent policies. With the decision of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Kewanee Oil v. Bicron, this conclusion was called into question and further consideration of a uniform act was suspended pending clarification from the U.S. Supreme Court or an act of Congress.

In 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court provided the needed clarification when it rendered its decision in Kewanee. However, while Kewanee is often cited for the proposition that state trade secret law is not preempted, this broad statement belies five aspects of the decision. First, Kewanee is based upon Ohio's trade secret law. Although the trade secret law of Ohio was found not to be preempted by U.S. patent law, Kewanee is not an endorsement of the trade secret laws of all states. Second, because Kewanee was decided before the enactment of the UTSA, the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on the question whether the UTSA is preempted by federal law. Third, Kewanee was decided based upon the Supreme Court's understanding of U.S. patent law in 1974 and does not reflect significant changes in U.S. patent law that have occurred since that time. Fourth, because the Kewanee decision was rendered before the adoption of the 1976 Copyright Act, the Court did not consider whether trade secret law interferes with federal copyright policies. Lastly, the Court failed to appreciate the possibility that an inventor would assert multiple forms of intellectual property protection for the same invention.

This article revisits the issues raised in Kewanee in light of the current state of patent, copyright and trade secret law. Although, like the U.S. Supreme Court in Kewanee, it concludes that state trade secret law is not preempted, it criticizes the reasoning of Kewanee and suggests a substitute analysis that is based upon principles of free competition.

Sacramento Business Journal - by Mark Anderson An El Dorado Hills technology worker accused of stealing trade secrets with military applications and offering them to foreign buyers for six figures in cash entered a guilty plea in Sacramento Friday, prosecutors said. Allen Cotten, 53, pleaded guilty to theft of trade secrets in U.S. District Court and admitted to a two-year scheme to steal and sell microwave technology, the local U.S. Attorney's office said in a news release. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Assistant U.S. Attorney Anne Pings said Cotten worked for Genesis Microwave Inc. in El Dorado Hills, and admitted that beginning in February 2004 he began to steal plans, designs, parts and specifications for components known as logarithmic video amplifiers. The technology has military applications for radar jamming, guidance, countermeasures and locating enemy signals during combat.

NEW YORK, NY

Greenstone Holdings, Inc (PINKSHEETS: GSHN) announced today that the Company and D&L LLC settled a lawsuit filed by D&L in the Circuit Court in Florida July 2004. The settlement resolves a long-standing dispute between D&L, Greenstone and the Inventor of a patent and two patent applications. No financial terms about the settlement were disclosed, but Mr. Miwa, CEO of Greenstone, reported that no significant cash payments were required of Greenstone other than future royalties and that the settlement will be greatly beneficial in attracting new customers that may have been concerned about ownership of the patented technology in the past. "We are excited," Mr. Miwa added, "to be joining forces with D&L on a project designed to develop new markets for D&L's patented technology and Greenstone's family of 'Green' products, including GreenShield™, Green-Dri™, Permeate™, MagneLine®, and Crystal-Guard™."

Beard Books is proud to announce the release of "Strategies for Investing in Intellectual Property" written by investment banker and lawyer David S. Ruder.

Beard Books' latest title gives an overview of investment strategies into intellectual property assets of all forms (patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and other rights), and aims to be an invaluable introduction to the subject for all types of investors, from private equity and venture capital investors looking at private deals to hedge fund and mutual fund investors looking at public market opportunities.

This book is also of particular help to corporate and intellectual property lawyers that want to understand current trends relating to intellectual property investing.

Among the topics covered are: accounting and valuation, intellectual property analytics, equity investment strategies, arbitrage, and securitization. The book also provides guidance as to why intellectual property assets continue to be of interest to investors, how investors might establish investment criteria, and provides some commentary as to whether intellectual property should be viewed as a discrete asset class.

244 S.W.3d 584 (2008)

Court of Appeals of Texas,
Dallas.
GLOBAL WATER GROUP, INC., Appellant,
v.
Robert ATCHLEY and Aspen Water, Inc., Appellee.
No. 05-06-00709-CV.
Jan. 9, 2008.
Rehearing Overruled Feb. 14, 2008.

Background: Water purification corporation filed lawsuit against its former president and his competing water purification company, asserting claims for misappropriation of trade secrets and breach of shareholder agreement. Following a jury verdict in favor of plaintiff, defendants filed motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV). The 116th Judicial District Court, Dallas County, Robert Frost, J., granted motion. Plaintiff appealed.

Holdings: The Court of Appeals, O'Neill , J., held that:
(1) plaintiff's formula of compound used in "mixed media pod" during absorption step of water purification process was not a trade secret;
(2) sequence of process used by plaintiff in its water purification system was not a trade secret; and
(3) corporation's former president did not breach shareholder agreement.

941 A.2d 420 (2008)

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
NEW MEDIA STRATEGIES, INC., Appellant/Cross-Appellee
v.
PULPFREE, INC. d/b/a BuzzMetrics, et al., Appellees/Cross-Appellants.
Nos. 06-CV-1483, 06-CV-1541.
Submitted Dec. 4, 2007.
Decided Jan. 31, 2008.

Background: Corporation that previously engaged in acquisition discussions with software company brought action against the software company and its officers, alleging misappropriation of trade secrets. The Superior Court, Michael L. Rankin , J., granted defendants' motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff appealed.

Holdings: The Court of Appeals, Thompson , J., held that:
(1) material fact issues precluded summary judgment on the ground that statute of limitations began to run at the time of defendant's e-mail messages, executive summary, and website, and
(2) material fact issue precluded summary judgment

John B. Judis

The MNC's seed partner doesn't want details of its safety test in the public domain.

A case filed in the Delhi High Court will decide the fate of exclusive data shared by companies with the government. Companies, especially those in the pharmaceutical and agri-chemicals businesses, don’t want such data to be made public in order to protect their commercial interests.

Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company Ltd (Mahyco), the seed partner of multinational agro-biotech major Monsanto Corporation, has moved the Delhi High Court against a Central Information Commission order seeking details of the safety test data generated during clinical trials of its genetically modified (GM) brinjal, the first GM edible crop to be introduced in India.

Mahyco had submitted the data with the department of biotechnology for regulatory clearances. Divya Raghunandan, a representative of global environmental watchdog Greenpeace, had sought this information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

The department turned down the plea on the grounds that the information sought by Greenpeace included “commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party”.

Roger Fillion

Joint Lockheed-Boeing rocket venture called for employees of the new United Launch Alliance to create a new culture of cooperation. When their company opened for business, United Launch Alliance employees watched as a big jar was hauled out and displayed at meetings. It would symbolize how bitter rivals Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co. planned to bury the hatchet and kick off their unprecedented, 50-50 rocket venture. Dubbed ULA, the joint venture began business in December 2006 with its headquarters here.

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In 2003, the Air Force suspended Bo