by Meridith Levinson

Such underhanded business practices -- both the recruiting to obtain trade secrets and the knee-jerk litigation -- pose a threat to IT workers, whose specialized knowledge and skills remain in demand even during this economic downturn. IT professionals need to be careful about taking jobs with competitors because their former employers could try to sue them for "misappropriating trade secrets," even if they did nothing of the sort, says Kump, a partner who specializes in intellectual property, antitrust and trade practices law at Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert. He expects such litigation to increase as the economic downturn continues.

There's almost an unstated understanding that those employees you hire from competitors will bring intellectual property with them. That will lead to an increase in litigation. The type of claim I would expect to see is unfair competition, intentional interference and misappropriation of trade secrets.

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