By: Brent Hunsberger
The Oregonian

A federal judge in Texas on Monday threw out most of a trade secret theft case brought by defense giant Raytheon Co. against a subsidiary of Wilsonville-based Flir Systems, Inc.

Raytheon sued Indigo Systems Corp. in March 2007 claiming it had hired dozens of Raytheon employees over time to learn trade secrets of its infrared cameras. Flir bought Goleta, Calif.-based Indigo in 2004.

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By Andrew M. Harris

Citadel Investment Group LLC defeated a bid by former executives to dismiss a claim that contracts they signed while working for the $12 billion hedge- fund management firm barred them from building their own business after they left.

Cook County Circuit Court Judge Mary Rochford today denied a defense request to throw out the allegation made in a lawsuit filed against them by the Chicago-based firm, which also accused the men of stealing its trade secrets.

"They don't have a claim for breach of the non-compete," Gair of Chicago's Jenner & Block LLP told Rochford during a Sept. 2 court appearance. "The non-compete does not bar the activities they say it bars."

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By John Anderson

Davis Guggenheim, the Oscar-winning director of "An Inconvenient Truth" moves from global warming to global rock with "It Might Get Loud."

The electric guitar has dominated rock music. The principals here, however are strictly hands-on, explaining and demonstrating what it is they do: Achieving a singular sound that is distinctive and personal amid the clangor of mainstream musical traffic.

While the "what" of their sound is set out plainly enough, it's the how and why that don't quite come across quite as clearly. During what is one of the film's more revealing moments, the Edge plays some thunderous U2 riff and then demonstrates, the utter simplicity of what he's playing. How exactly did he get that Edge sound, and why? Trade secret, apparently. Where each guitarist has arrived in seeking his trademark tone is clear enough.

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By Andrew Maykuth
Inquirer Staff Writer

Those new smart meters Peco Energy Co. and other utilities will install soon are being touted as money-savers that will give customers more control over their electric bills.

"The drive to retool the United States' electricity generation and distribution networks may inadvertently raise a monster with unparalleled abilities to invade residential privacy," Elias Leake Quinn, a research analyst at the Center for Energy and Environmental Security in Boulder, Colo., wrote in a recent paper on smart meters.

But because they capture so much information, the meters also can reveal intimate details about activity inside a customer's house: when they are home; when they sleep; when they eat.

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By: Staff-Semiconductor International

TSMC alleges that SMIC violated a 2005 settlement between the two companies, allegedly using TSMC's trade secrets in SMIC's 130 nm and beyond products. TSMC claims that SMIC's alleged use of the trade secrets should result in termination of a TSMC patent license to SMIC, and also negates an agreement not to sue that was part of the 2005 settlement.

SMIC has denied the allegations of misappropriation, and has filed counter charges both in the state of California and in China's High Court in Beijing.

A civil trial is set to begin Wednesday in the Alameda County, Calif., Superior Court.

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By: The Associated Press

A legal battle over the departure of winemaker Anthony Rynders from the Domaine Serene Vineyards and Winery is being closely watched by an industry that relies heavily on trade secrets.

In the lawsuit, the winery alleges that Rynders was dishonest, violated company policy that he make wine exclusively for Domaine Serene, used Domaine Serene equipment in his outside winemaking venture, gave inside information to a competitor, delayed telling owners about his plans to leave and ultimately presented the company with an ultimatum demanding a dramatic pay raise as his price of staying on.

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By: JEAN ORTIZ
Associated Press Writer

OMAHA, Neb. - Election Systems & Software has sued two former employees and an Indiana elections consulting firm, accusing them of illegally using the company's software and trade secrets.

A lawsuit filed Thursday on the company's behalf in U.S. District Court in Omaha alleges Mark Allison, of Sachse, Texas, and James Dalton, of Granger, Ind., were illegally using copyrighted software designed to help state and local governments manage elections. Both men had agreed not to disclose confidential information, even after they left the company, according to the lawsuit.

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By: Jaikumar Vijayan

For the second time in less than three years, a research scientist at DuPont has been accused of misappropriating trade secrets from the company and attempting to use them to build competing products in China.

In a lawsuit filed in Delaware Chancery Court, DuPont accused Hong Meng, a former senior research scientist at the company, of stealing data on a new, thin-computer display technology called "organic light emitting diode" or OLED. DuPont claims that Meng planned to use the stolen information to develop and commercialize products using OLED technology with his alma mater, Peking University, in Beijing, which is also developing similar technology.

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By Michael Braga

MANATEE COUNTY - Contact lens manufacturer Benz Research has filed a lawsuit against a former employee, claiming that he stole trade secrets with the intent of selling them to competitors.

"The misappropriation of Benz Research's trade secrets by Sturgis were done willfully, maliciously and for the purpose of injuring Benz Research," the lawsuit filed in circuit court in Manatee County says. "Benz Research asks that this court award it actual damages and any unjust enrichment caused by Sturgis's misappropriation."

The problem is that as an IT specialist, Sturgis was one of only two employees on staff who had access to the company's most sensitive information.

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BY TRIBUNE STAFF

A Billings-based cooperative, the Southern Montana Electric Generation & Transmission Cooperative, met a Sept. 4 deadline for filing a brief in a long-standing open-records dispute with a Helena group.

The Montana Environmental Information Center filed suit against the city of Great Falls and SME, arguing a number of records being withheld from public view by the city should be released.

In this month's filing, SME offered its rationale for keeping away from public view more than 500 documents, including e-mails, packets of information, letters, drafts of letters and other records.

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BY JIM SIEGEL
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

The Ohio Supreme Court today sided with the Cincinnati Public School officials who argued that annual semester exams given to all ninth-graders are not public records subject to disclosure.

In a 5-2 decision, the court said the tests fall within an exemption to public records law for trade secrets. School attorneys argued that allowing public access to the tests could induce cheating and cost the district more than $270,000 each year to replace questions on the test, making it unaffordable.

"Ordering disclosure of the semester exams would open the door for students to have access to these tests as well, undermining the tests' effectiveness in measuring student ability if the test is given in the future," Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger wrote for the majority.

By Song Shengxia

Three employees of a steel engineering company in North China's Tianjin were convicted Wednesday on charges of stealing commercial secrets from their former employer, a steel company in Wuhan, Hubei Province.

The Wuhan prosecutor told the Global Times Thursday that Tianjin Huanbohai Steel Engineering Technology Company was accused of using "improper means" to obtain commercial secrets from WISDRI Engineering & Research Company.

The general manager of Huanbohai Steel, two of its employees, and an employee of WISDRI were each sentenced to jail terms between 10 months and two years and each fined 800,000 yuan ($117,227) for violating commercial secrets rules.

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By Robert F. Service

A Chinese-born scientist, one of the leading researchers in the field of next-generation display technologies, has been fired by DuPont, which alleges he attempted to steal company secrets.

The scientist, Hong Meng, now faces both a civil lawsuit from the company and a criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. If charged with criminal wrongdoing, Meng could face up to 10 years in jail and a $5 million fine.

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By Paul Craane

In transforming biomass to power, biofuels or other chemicals, equipment is used to carry out a process to provide a product. Innovation as to the equipment, the process or the product may cause a company to seek patent protection.

Depending on the nature of the product and the company's business plan, patent protection may not be the only choice, or the best choice. In certain settings, a company may be able to choose the most advantageous form of protection, and trade secret protection may be the better choice when compared with seeking patent protection.

However, in certain other settings, even though trade secret protection may be possible as to the equipment or the process, the decision to pursue patent protection on the product may determine if trade secret protection is really an option.

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Marketing Technology Solutions, Inc
 
Marketing Technology Solutions, Inc. ("MTS"), owner and operator of the health website QualityHealth.com, has today filed a lawsuit alleging that MediZine, LLC infringed MTS's intellectual property rights and misappropriated trade secrets and other confidential information by utilizing MTS-copyrighted online lead generation software in support of RemedyLife.com, a health website owned and operated by MediZine.

"Our business of online lead generation and performance marketing services for healthcare advertisers is based heavily on intellectual property," said Cliff Farren, senior vice president at MTS.

Specifically, the lawsuit alleges, among other claims, copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets and confidential information, unfair competition, unjust enrichment, tortious interference with contract, and aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty against MediZine.

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AP

Jackson - Grand jury testimony and other evidence from the judicial corruption scheme that snagged former Hinds County Circuit Judge Bobby DeLaughter could spill over into two other cases.

DeLaughter pleaded guilty July 30 to a federal obstruction charge in a case involving Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, who was one of the most successful tort lawyers in the country before he went to federal prison.

Former Hinds County District Attorney Ed Peters was expected to testify that he illegally influenced DeLaughter when he presided over the Scruggs litigation and another civil lawsuit involving trade secrets, according to court records.

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By Laurence Hammack

Luna Innovations Inc. has reached a tentative settlement that would reduce a $36.3 million jury verdict to a sum that no longer endangers the Roanoke-based company.

The high-tech firm and Hansen Medical Inc. "have developed a framework for settlement," attorneys on both sides of the case wrote in a letter Thursday to bankruptcy court Judge William Stone.

Although terms of the preliminary settlement were not made public, it appears to offer Luna an escape route from a potentially crushing loss in a trade secrets lawsuit.

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By Cathy Mputhia

When I worked for a computer software manufacturing firm, I was the chairperson of a team charged with creating and developing innovative software for use by our customers.

Due largely to my efforts, my team came up with innovative software solutions for our clients. I used research that I had undertaken as part of my undergraduate research project and applied the recommendations I had arrived at in my work place.

I now work with another firm in a different industry. I am aware that this software that I spearheaded the creation of has not been developed elsewhere in the country and that my former employer's sales have sky-rocketed due in large part to this innovative product.

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A citizen of the People's Republic of China was charged in four-count federal Indictment today in connection with his scheme to steal trade secrets and proprietary information relating to computer systems and software with environmental applications from his New Jersey employer, Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph J. Marra, Jr., announced.

Zhu, who is in the United States on a work visa, was arrested on a federal criminal Complaint by Special Agents with the FBI at his residence on the morning of April 9, 2009.

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