By: Cam Cole
Canwest News Service

There have been 30 head coaching vacancies in the National Football League since 2006, a surprising number of them filled by relative unknowns from other staffs -- including the two whose teams face off in Sunday's Super Bowl.
By one estimate, there could be as many as 19 changes of defensive coordinators, alone, before next season. The potential for corporate espionage is staggering.

Does every franchise that loses a coach to another team immediately tear up its system and start all over because it knows the guy who departed probably photocopied the playbook before he turned it in, and will surely deliver the intelligence to the new employer?

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By: Elinor Mills

Microsoft has sued a former employee for allegedly lying when he applied for a job there and stealing trade secrets that were later used in a lawsuit against Microsoft partners.

According to the lawsuit, filed January 22 in King County Superior Court, Miki Mullor stated on his application that he no longer worked at Ancora Technologies because it had gone out of business.

Mullor allegedly downloaded confidential documents onto his company-issued laptop at some point that were related to the subsequent patent lawsuit, and then allegedly used a file-wiping program and a "defrag" utility designed to overwrite deleted files in order to hide the tracks.

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Verdict-Plaintiff: the jury found that the IREF owned the EPI-1, EPI-2, and Acadesine databases in 2002 and 2003; that the databases were trade secrets in 2002 and 2003; that in February 2002, Hsu and Pfizer misappropriated the database trade secrets; and that their misappropriations were willful and malicious. Jurors found that the misappropriation of the IREF's trade secrets was a substantial factor in causing actual loss to the IREF or unjust enrichment to Pfizer.

A communications company, providing integrated voice and data
communications, including digital subscriber line (DSL) services, as alternative
to local phone companies, filed suit against customer lead generation services
provider, claiming breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach
of covenant of good faith and fair dealing, breach of fiduciary duty, and
conversion by taking proprietary customer lead information for voice over internet
protocol (VoIP) marketing campaign and integrating such information into
provider's federated database and sharing it with competitors. Customer lead
services provider moved to compel responses to its requests for production of
documents.

The District Court, John M. Facciola, United States Magistrate Judge,
held that customer lead services provider would be required to produce its e-mails
in their native format, rather than in hard copy.

Ordered accordingly.

A manufacturer of night vision devices for use on military rifles
brought suit against competitor asserting causes of action for trademark
infringement and unfair competition under the Lanham Act and common-law unfair
competition. Competitor asserted counterclaims for the same causes of action, and
for misappropriation of trade secrets and business disparagement. Competitor
appealed from part of magistrate judge's order, 2008 WL 5062005, requiring it to
pay manufacturer $1,000 as compensation for expenses it incurred filing its motion
to compel.

The District Court, Anne C. Conway, J., held that manufacturer was
entitled to award of attorney fees for expenses it incurred filing its motion to
compel.

A staffing company brought action against competitor and former
employee, who began working for competitor, for breach of contract,
misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair and deceptive trade practices, and
tortious interference with a contract. Following a bench trial, the Superior
Court, Wake County, James C. Spencer, J., entered judgment in favor of company.
Competitor and former employee appealed.

The Court of Appeals, McCullough, J., held that:

(1) noncompetition agreement, which was executed as part of incentive stock
option agreement, did not supersede earlier non-competition and non-solicitation
agreement, and thus no novation occurred;

(2) non-competition agreement extended beyond any legitimate interest that
company might have had and thus was unenforceable;

(3) evidence supported trial court's finding that competitor and former employee
knew of company's confidential information, had opportunity to acquire it, and did
so, causing harm to company;

(4) violation of Trade Secrets Protection Act by former employee and competitor
constituted unfair act or practice; and

(5) company was entitled to greater of either extent to which company had
suffered economic loss or extent to which competitor had unjustly benefited from
use of company's marketing strategy information and per diem nurse information.

Reversed in part and vacated and remanded in part.

By: Mike Jervis

A number of recent, high profile cases have cast a critical light on a process used by most insolvency firms the 'pre-pack'. In short, this is where a deal to sell the assets of a failing company is agreed prior to insolvency and completed immediately after the appointment of administrators or receivers.

An obvious point for the IP to make is that a pre-packaged sale of a business does not absolve him from his duty to obtain the best price for the business in question. A pre-pack does not miraculously sanitise a sale at less than full value to insiders or existing management.

The challenge for IPs is to get better at explaining the circumstances when a pre-pack is the best means of preserving value for creditors and shareholders and their role in the process.

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WASHINGTON (AFP)

Leading US chemical company DuPont on Tuesday filed a lawsuit accusing South Korean competitor Kolon Industries of stealing trade secrets. DuPont said a civil suit was filed in a US federal court against Kolon "for theft of trade secrets and confidential information" over the American firm's Kevlar fiber product used in body armor worn by police officers and soldiers.

DuPont also was filing a lawsuit Tuesday in Canada and considering similar actions in other countries over the issue, a company statement said.

"This action underscores the measures that DuPont, as a market-driven science company, will pursue to protect our proprietary information for the benefit of our shareholders and customers," DuPont's counsel Thomas Sager said.

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By: Francine L. Semaya , William K. Broudy and Laurance D. Shapiro

On January 13, 2009, the New York Supreme Court, the trial level court in New York, denied a challenge to the New York Insurance Department's (the "Department") determination that certain transactional information filed with the Department by a bond insurer as a trade secret was exempt from public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Law ("FOIL").

In this case, MBIA filed with the Department information on numerous structured finance transactions it insured, including spreadsheets containing highly detailed information relating to parties involved in each transaction and the details of such transactions. This information was submitted by MBIA with a request that the information be treated as confidential and be exempt from disclosure under FOIL as trade secrets which, if disclosed, would cause substantial injury to the competitive position of the subject enterprise.

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By: Doug Phillips

An employee of a marine services company on Plantation Key is accused of stealing trade secrets from her workplace and giving them to her boyfriend, a potential competitor of the business.

According to the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, Gwendolyn Russell, 45, was diverting price estimates and other quotes from Atlantic Davits & Boatlifts of the Keys so her boyfriend could submit lower quotes for the work in order to win potential customers.

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By ALEXA HYLAND

International Rectifier Corp. lost its battle with ousted chief executive Alexander Lidow when a Los Angeles federal judge dismissed its lawsuit over alleged theft of trade secrets.

The El Segundo maker of power management chips filed the suit in September, alleging that Lidow engaged in an ongoing criminal enterprise -- also known as a racketeer influenced and corrupt organization, or Rico -- by stealing information and intellectual property related to the company's $60 million secret research. The judge dismissed the suit on Monday.

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The Capital-Journal

A trial is set to begin Tuesday for a lawsuit filed by a Manhattan electronics design and manufacturing company alleging fraud, fraudulent concealment, breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets by a French company after a deal to make a propeller deicing system dissolved.

In the lawsuit, originally filed Nov. 15, 2005, ICE Corp., of Manhattan, alleges it entered into a contract with Ratier-Figeac, a French company, for the design, development and manufacture of a propeller deicing controller for an A400M, a military transport aircraft being developed by Airbus, Jason Buchanan, an attorney representing ICE Corp, said Friday.

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By Jane Han
Staff Reporter

Kolon Industries fended off Wednesday a trade secret lawsuit filed by leading American chemical firm DuPont, claiming that its business has not breached any law to step into the lucrative para-aramid fiber market.

DuPont filed a suit with a U.S. federal court Tuesday, accusing the Korean firm of stealing trade secrets and confidential information related to its high-strength fiber technology used to make bullet-proof and flame-resistant clothing.

``Kolon was not involved in illegal activities to expand its business. We need more information from DuPont and to see a copy of the complaint to understand exactly what they are suing us for,'' said Lim Chu-seup, Kolon's chief communications officer.

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PRWEB

In the TEKsystems vs. Modis lawsuit, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has awarded TEKsystems $450,000 for misappropriation of trade secrets by Modis, Inc. The Court concluded that Modis used information found in TEKsystems' proprietary database with knowledge that it came from TEKsystems, that the information constituted trade secrets, and that Modis refused to return the trade secret information or to delete it from its systems. In addition to the monetary award, the Court determined TEKsystems was entitled to permanent injunctive relief to prevent actual and threatened misappropriation of TEKsystems' trade secrets by Modis.

To continue reading this interesting article from PRWEB.com, click here.

By Robert Weisman

Software provider CA Inc. this morning said it has reached a settlement with Rocket Software of Newton, a competitor in the database administration software business, in connection with a 2007 lawsuit lodged by CA charging Rocket with copyright infringement.

CA sued Rocket for $200 million, alleging that a team of CA engineers hired by Rocket stole computer source code and trade secrets from their former employer and used them as the basis for technology marketed as part of IBM Corp.'s data management software suite. CA today didn't disclose the settlement amount.

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By Jim Bulleit
WLKY.com

The secret recipe of Kentucky Fried Chicken is back in Louisville.
The recipe was moved last September to an undisclosed location while KFC's internal security was revamped.

"This recipe has amazing global importance and the reason is that you could maybe put on your hand the number of world, global trade secrets that are housed in a single packet, in a single form," said KFC President Roger Eaton.

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BY DAVID ASHENFELTER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

A former vice president of Metaldyne Corp. and two former senior employees were sentenced in Detroit today to prison terms after pleading guilty to charges involving theft of trade secrets to sell to Chinese competitors.

"The case demonstrates the importance of protecting the intellectual property of U.S. auto suppliers," said Acting U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg, who handled the case.

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By: McClatch
The News & Observer

Etrials Worldwide, a Morrisville company that has had a tumultuous past two years, is battling a local rival in Wake County court.

The lawsuit against Unithink, a Belgian company that in October set up U.S. operations about 5 miles from etrials, alleges that Unithink lured away key etrials employees and illegally obtained trade secrets to damage etrials' business. Both companies make software.

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By: Zusha Elinson

Eyebrows were raised by Silvaco Data Systems Inc.'s aggressive move when it sued the customers of a software maker, Circuit Semantics Inc., that it had beaten in a trade secrets case.

Last week, one of those customers, Cypress Semiconductor Corp., notched a win in the long-running fight. Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Kevin Murphy granted summary judgment to Cypress, ruling that Silvaco didn't have the evidence to show that Cypress acquired or knew about the stolen trade secrets when it bought software from Circuit Semantics.

"At most, Cypress obtained software that was created using the purported trade secrets," Murphy wrote.

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By David A. Kays

Rejecting the argument that state trade secret and breach of contract claims were pre-empted by federal patent law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld the district court's jury verdict for the plaintiff and $20 million award of damages for unjust enrichment and breach of contract. Russo v. Ballard Med. Prods., Case Nos. 07-4090, -4102 (10th Cir., Dec. 18, 2008) (Gorsuch, J.).

Ballard Medical Products sought the help of Ronald Russo, an independent medical device inventor, to assist in designing improvements to its TrachCare 24 catheter, a closed-suction catheter designed to remove debris from ventilator tubes without having to disconnect patients from the ventilators that provide them with oxygen. After executing a confidential disclosure agreement (CDA), Russo presented design drawings and a prototype for several improvements, but negotiations over licensing the improvements failed. Ballard subsequently used Russo's designs to secure two patents and bring its new product, TrachCare 72, to market.

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By: Jesse Noyes

Skyward Mobile Inc., which was run by a team with top technology pedigrees, sought Chapter 7 protection in Boston. The company had 20 employees as of 16 months ago and built applications ranging from crossword puzzles to mobile Bibles for use on cell phones.

Skyward was founded by its CEO Jeremy De Bonet, who was the former chief technology officer of MobiTV, a developer of streaming video and audio for mobile phones.

After De Bonet founded Skyward, MobiTV sued him, alleging he had illegally taken trade secrets with him when he abruptly left the California company in 2006.

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By: JONATHAN ELLIS

A bill that would open many government records to the public cleared its first hurdle Friday by passing in a Senate committee. Senate Bill 147 creates a presumption that government records are public. South Dakota is one of the only states in the nation without such a law.

Sen. Dave Knudson, R-Sioux Falls, the bill's sponsor, acknowledged that some issues need to be addressed as the bill works its way through the legislative process. The bill is modeled after Nebraska's public records law, and it includes specific exemptions for materials that aren't public, such as medical records, trade secrets and personnel issues.

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NovaBay Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing products for the treatment or prevention of a wide range of bacterial and viral infections, has recently been featured in a segment on San Francisco Bay area's KTVU-TV Channel 2 news and in an article in Genetic Engineering News.

The KTVU-TV segment highlights NovaBay's lead compound in development, NVC-422, as a new way of killing bacteria without developing resistance, which is a growing problem with currently available antibiotics. The interview with Dr. Ron Najafi provides a tour of NovaBay's lab facilities as well as an overview of the mechanism of action and therapeutic product opportunities for NVC-422. This novel product candidate is currently in human clinical trials for the treatment of a variety of infectious diseases. NVC-422 is based upon small molecules that white blood cells naturally produce to destroy microbes.

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By THOMAS G. DONLAN

GENERAL MOTORS HAS LEARNED FROM ITS MISTAKES

There are those who say that the country cannot afford to let GM, Chrysler and Ford go bankrupt. They think the car companies and their suppliers are the core of American industry, which must be saved. Others add that the companies should be preserved and nurtured until they produce some breakthrough technology that lets them compete in producing cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars.

In an advertisement, maybe. But ads cannot make the American brands competitive, and neither can technology glimmering over the horizon. Industrial breakthroughs are rarely made with trade secrets or using new ideas that can be patented. Even now, there's little to stop a U.S. company from making a Prius-like car for less than Toyota's price, except union contracts, the cost of fringe benefits, ungainly corporate management structures and legal obligations to a network of hungry dealers. Oh, and a lack of possible profit.

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By: Venuri Siriwardane

Sensitive corporate data are walking right out the door with disgruntled former employees.

More than half of workers who lost or left a job in 2008 said they stole confidential company data, according to a recent survey by Symantec, a data security firm, and the Poneman Institute, which polled nearly 1,000 adults who lost their job last year. Records taken include e-mail lists, employee records and customer contact information.

To continue reading this interesting article from The Star-Ledger Business News, click here.

By: Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy

Newly released Freedom of Information Act documents reveal details of trade secrets leaked during negotiations of America's first trade agreement.

In 1983 the Israeli Prime Minister and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobbied the Reagan administration for preferential access to the US market. The US Trade Representative (USTR) commissioned the US International Trade Commission (ITC) to conduct an investigation to advise the President about the probable economic effect of providing duty free entry of Israeli imports on January 31, 1984.

The ITC compiled "business confidential" information and intellectual property solicited from US corporations and industry associations into a classified report for the negotiations. But on August 3, 1984 the Washington Post broke the news that the FBI was investigating how AIPAC obtained one of the fifteen numbered and tightly controlled copies of the classified report. The ITC later confirmed it was also obtained by the Israeli government.

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By Juho Erkheikki

The Finnish government may silence corporate whistleblowers after supporting legislation backed by Nokia Oyj to ease regulations on monitoring workers' emails, opponents say.

"It's a step toward more and more surveillance of private citizens," said Tapani Tarvainen, chairman of Electronic Frontier Finland, an advocacy group. "This could hinder information from leaking to the press. The trade secret case is clearly just a pretext."

The proposal, dubbed the "snooping" or "Nokia" law, allows companies to more easily see with whom their employees are e-mailing. Helsingin Sanomat, the country's biggest newspaper, earlier this month accused Nokia of making behind-the-scenes threats to leave the country if the bill doesn't pass. The world's biggest mobile-phone maker, which denies the allegations, wants the law to protect intellectual property rights.

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By Ryan Averbeck and Gregory A. Gaddy

Global economic competition, to a large extent, has replaced the Cold War political and military competition. As a result, countries now pursue national economic interests through a myriad of activities, including espionage. Their goal is to maintain and sustain a competitive advantage in the global market place as quickly and affordably as possible, preferably at YOUR expense. This has placed U.S. businesses in an even greater position of risk as countries and companies increase the targeting of innovative U.S. based research, technologies, and products. (Editor's note: See Nation States' Espionage and Counterespionage, by CIA veteran Christopher Burgess.

The targeting and theft of U.S. innovation, be it in the form of intellectual property, trade secrets, research, prototypes, etc., has significant dire effects on our nation.

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By Chris Foresman

Apple and its unlicensed Mac clone maker nemesis Psystar jointly filed a motion to protect confidential information during the discovery process of the ongoing lawsuit between the two. In a joint filing made by both Apple and Psystar, the two companies agreed to a litany of stipulations for the handling of evidence that is deemed sensitive, a protected trade secret, or otherwise "confidential."

The 18-page protective order defines two classes of "protected material" covered by the order. "Confidential" material covers anything that falls under Rule 26(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which allows for protection of sensitive information. Further, anything information that "would affect its competitive position, security interests, intellectual properties, or technological developments in an adverse manner" can be designated "Confidential -- Attorney's Eyes Only."

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The Enquirer
WEST CHESTER TWP.

Rite Track Equipment Services Inc., supplier of software and related equipment to the semiconductor industry, has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati against two former employees and a newly formed company they work for.

The suit claims that Jeff Gallant, Rite Track's former director of sales, and Henry Knight, former director of research and software development, and their new company Unique Engineering and Consulting Services LLC of West Chester with "misappropriation of Rite Track's confidential information and trade secrets."

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