By Zach Honig

RSA SecureID dongles add a layer of protection to everything from office pilates class schedules to corporate email accounts, with banks, tech companies, and even U.S. defense contractors using hardware security tokens to protect their networks.

If last month's Sony breach didn't already convince you to beef up your own computer security, now might be a good time to swap in 'Pa55werD1' for the rather pathetic 'password' you've been using to protect your own company's trade secrets for the last decade.

Update: According to Reuters, Lockheed Martin sent out a statement to clarify that it promptly took action to thwart the attack one week ago, and consequently "no customer, program or employee personal data has been compromised."

To read the complete article from engadget, please click here.

By Kevin E. Noonan

The seeming legislative juggernaut that is the America Invents Act (S. 23 and H.R. 1249) is reportedly going to come to a floor vote in the House of Representatives this month. If it passes, there is a real chance that the bill will be passed "as is" by the Senate, despite any differences between S. 23 and H.R. 1249 and be on the President's desk for signature before fall.

The proposed legislation effectively shifts the constitutional balance between trade secrets and patents to favor trade secrets. Under present law, a person needs to choose between protecting an invention through trade secret and filing a patent application. If the inventor chooses trade secret, the law today holds that the inventor abandons his right to obtain a patent. Under section 35 U.S.C. section 102(c), a person is barred from receiving a patent if that person has abandoned the invention.

To read the complete news article from Patent Docs, please click here.

By: Walt Nett

A local vending machine company and its founders must pay Custom Food Group nearly $900,000 after jurors in a lawsuit decided two former long-term Custom employees misappropriated Custom's trade secrets and interfered with company business after the employees quit to launch their own business.

District Judge Les Hatch ordered Texas Star Refreshments and company founders Rodney Wilson and Donna Wilson, who are husband and wife, to pay $894,000 plus interest and court costs after a jury two weeks ago found in favor of Dallas-based Custom Food.

To continue reading this article from Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, please click here.

By: Andrew Orlowski

A Chinese court has convicted three Chinese citizens, one a Foxconn employee, for trade secret theft.

Local companies released iPad 2 cases before the device had even been unveiled, and a Foxconn staffer was handed a jail sentence for handing over design secrets.

It's unusual for a Chinese court to prosecute locals over IP issues when a foreign business is the victim. It's even more unusual for these to relate to design.

The largest Chinese companies have regularly been accused of IP theft relating to technology. Huawei was been sued by Cisco and more recently by Motorola, while Ericsson has escalated its legal dispute with ZTE.

To continue reading this interesting article, please click here.