By: Siel Ju

So long as companies claim the chemicals are a trade secret, neither the names nor the properties of the chemicals need to be released, except to a handful of Environmental Protection Agency employees who aren't allowed to share that information.

EWG calls this toxic "trade secret" loophole a "de-facto witness protection program" for chemicals, pointing out that "a large number of these secret chemicals are used everyday in consumer products, including artists' supplies, plastic products, fabrics and apparel, furniture and items intended for use by children."

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By Guest Barista

Eastman's divestment of its PET business in the EU to Indorama ended up in Delaware federal court as the licensor's patent infringement action. Eastman Chemical Company v. AlphaPet Inc. et al. (09-CV-971). Named as defendants are the Indorama licensees, and affiliates, and a U.S. subsidiary, AlphaPet.

The complaint raises interesting problems about a licensor suing licensees for patent infringement along with a trade secret breach by the licensor's employees. It underscores the importance of a well thought out forum selection clause that extends to all the licensees and affiliates.

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United States District Court, E.D. Tennessee, Knoxville.

The Superseding Indictment charges the defendants in eleven counts with violations of the Economic Espionage Act (EEA), 18 U.S.C. § 1832. Count One alleges the defendants conspired to commit theft of trade secrets, unauthorized photographing and transmitting of trade secrets, and receiving and possessing trade secrets. Count Two charges the defendants with theft and attempted theft of trade secrets. Count Three asserts that the defendants photographed and attempted to photograph trade secrets.

Counts Four through Six allege that the defendants transmitted or attempted to transmit trade secrets. Count Seven charges the defendants with possession or attempted possession of stolen trade secrets. Counts Eight through Ten allege that the defendants committed wire fraud, and Count Eleven alleges the defendants conspired to commit wire fraud.

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TOWN TALK STAFF

U.S. District Judge Dee D. Drell issued a protective order on Dec. 30 to protect "confidential information" from becoming public knowledge prior to trial.

"This Protective Order applies to confidential information, documents and things, including, without limitation, designated testimony adduced at depositions upon oral examination or upon written questions, answers to interrogatories, documents and tangible things produced, and answers to requests for admissions," Drell wrote.

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The QMN Weekly Bulletin

An FDA Transparency Task Force request for comment on making Form 483s more accessible is taking heat for both the way it was announced and the possible threat it could pose to industry trade secrets.

The request did not come through traditional channels, such as a Federal Register notice. Rather, it was announced recently in a blog entry on the task force's website and a Center for Devices and Radiological Health Twitter post.

Some experts fear that making the forms public could disclose trade secrets.

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By: John George
Staff Writer

The American Board of Internal Medicine filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging copyright infringement and theft of trade secrets by the Arora Board Review and two of its principals.

The lawsuit, filed at U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, also names Arora principals Rajender K. Arora and Anise Kachadourian as defendants.

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By: Renee M. Jackson

Employers must address their use and misuse before, during and after an employee's tenure.

Social media are any type of Internet-based media created through social interaction in which individuals primarily produce, rather than consume, the content. In the workplace, the prevalent social media are video-sharing Web sites (YouTube), social networking Web sites (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter), online multiuser virtual worlds (Second Life, World of War craft) and personal or corporate blogs.

The increased use of social media in the workplace, by employees and employers alike, presents both opportunities and risks for employers because social media now permeate the entire life cycle of employment: during pre-employment inquiries, throughout the period of employment and after separation from employment. Employers must consider and address the use and misuse of social media at each stage.

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Chinese police have concluded investigations into four employees of Rio Tinto Ltd., who were suspected of infringing trade secrets and bribery. They were handed over to the Shanghai procuratorate for prosecution, Shanghai public security authorities said Monday.

She said China always dealt with the case according to Chinese law and diplomatic agreements between China and Australia.

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By Frank Michael Russell

A lawyer representing Cupertino iPhone, iPod and "I'm a Mac" computer maker Apple is demanding that Valleywag, Gawker Media's tech gossip site, retract its offer to pay as much as $100,000 for proof that the company's rumored tablet or "iSlate" computing device actually exists.

"You and your company have crossed the line by offering a bounty for the theft of Apple's trade secrets," Michael Spillner, a lawyer for Menlo Park-based Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, wrote in a letter to Gawker Editor-In-Chief Gabriel Snyder citing California's trade-secret law. According to Bloomberg News, Apple confirmed the letter was sent on its behalf.

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By Lyndsey Layton
THE WASHINGTON POST

A lawyer representing Cupertino iPhone, iPod and "I'm a Mac" computer maker Apple is demanding that Valleywag, Gawker Media's tech gossip site, retract its offer to pay as much as $100,000 for proof that the company's rumored tablet or "iSlate" computing device actually exists.

"You and your company have crossed the line by offering a bounty for the theft of Apple's trade secrets," Michael Spillner, a lawyer for Menlo Park-based Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, wrote in a letter to Gawker Editor-In-Chief Gabriel Snyder citing California's trade-secret law. According to Bloomberg News, Apple confirmed the letter was sent on its behalf.

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By: Mike Harvey

Apple has turned to its lawyers in an attempt to keep the lid on the company's biggest product launch in three years.

Its lawyers have sent a warning letter to a website that offered cash for photos of its touchscreen tablet personal computer before the product is unveiled, probably next week.

The tablet will be Apple's biggest new product category since it launched the iPhone in 2007. The company, which has turned secrecy into a marketing phenomenon, has declined to confirm even if its event a week today will reveal the much-anticipated device.

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By: Lenie Lectura / Reporter

TELECOM giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) said the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) can't compel it to reveal the interconnection terms it extends to other carriers. This, as it said it needs to protect its "trade secrets" because the terms are negotiated between two parties.

PLDT and other phone companies refused to submit to the NTC vital information such as interconnection facilities, network requirements, traffic measurement, infra sharing and collocation, charging mechanisms, and interconnection usage charges. Their refusal led to the issuance of show-cause orders by the regulators.

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By Wailin Wong

Motorola is seeking a temporary restraining order against a former executive who left the Schaumburg-based company to join Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia.

Motorola filed an emergency motion Jan. 14 in Cook County Circuit Court, asking for a restraining order against David Hartsfield. The case was moved to U.S. District Court.

The filing said that as a vice president in the mobile devices business, Hartsfield had "access to Motorola's most competitively sensitive information" and was responsible for phones using Code Division Multiple Access, or CDMA, technology. In the U.S., Verizon Wireless and Sprint use the CDMA standard.

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By: Tresa Baldas
The National Law Journal

The secret recipe for Thomas' English Muffins is putting to the test an unsettled legal doctrine: that you can sue someone out of fear that he might steal your trade secrets.

In a highly watched trade secrets case in Pennsylvania, Bimbo Bakeries USA is going after former executive Chris Botticella, a 20-year employee who allegedly told the company he was retiring when he was really taking a job with rival Hostess Brands Inc. According to court records, Botticella signed a confidentiality agreement last March after being promoted to manage a California facility that makes Thomas' English Muffins. Bimbo Bakeries says he is one of fewer than 10 people in the world who know how to make the muffins with the special "nooks and crannies."

McCarthy Tetrault
George S. Tach

A different risk posed by Web 2.0 technologies involves the inadvertent disclosure of intellectual property. Consider trade secrets. The law will afford protection to an organization's trade secrets -- including its confidential information -- so long as the organization takes reasonable measures to keep the material confidential.

It is extremely easy, however, to let a secret slip out during a Web 2.0 chat, blog posting or tweet. Again, we have already had an analogue to this risk in the Web 1.0 environment, namely the errant e-mail (for example, adding a non-company name to the "cc" list on sensitive, trade secret laden e-mail, and then having to hope that the "recall" technology works).

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By: Lehman Lee & Xu and Tsolmon Shar

Chinese police have concluded an investigation into a detained Australian Rio Tinto Ltd executive and three colleagues arrested on charges of infringing trade secrets and bribery and sent the case to prosecutors, the Australian government and Chinese state media said last Monday. Four Rio staff, including Australian citizen Stern Hu, has been in Chinese custody since July over accusations of illegally obtaining commercial secrets.

Rio Tinto and the Australian government have urged China to allow the four, including Stern Hu, an Australian citizen who headed Rio Tinto's iron ore business in China, legal representation and to handle the case in a transparent way.

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