Here are the noteworthy posts, articles and cases of the past week:
Trade Secret and Non-Compete Cases and Posts:
- U.S. District Court Judge Gary Keess issued his opinion explaining his reasons for denying CBS’ Motion for TRO to prevent the premiere of ABC’s Glass House reality show. A copy of the Opinion can be found in the PDF below. As expected, Judge Keess expressed “serious doubts” about whether CBS had any trade secrets, let alone whether ABC had misappropriated them. He dismantled CBS’ claims that its Big Brother “House Guest” manual qualified as a trade secret (labelling it “generic”) and found that the “filming, editing and production techniques” were commonplace in the industry. Judge Keess also rejected any claim of irreparable injury, reasoning any harm was readily compensable by a damages award. For more on this case, see my earlier posts here and here.
- MGA’s insurers have sued for their share of the $137 million in lawyers’ fees and costs award in the epic MGA v. Mattel “Bratz” case according to Alison Frankel’s On The Case Blog. National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh and Crum & Forster Specialty Insurance Company have filed a declaratory action for those fees and MGA is expected to oppose the complaint as premature.
- The “inevitable disclosure doctrine” appears to be on life support in Massachusetts, according to recent posts in Kenneth Vanko’s Legal Developments in Non-Competition Agreements Blog and Seyfarth Shaw’s Trading Secrets Blog. Both posts describe the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts’ ruling in U.S. Elec. Svcs., Inc. v. Schmidt, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 84272 (D. Mass. June 19, 2012), that the doctrine cannot be applied in the absence of a non-compete, at least under Massachusetts law.
- For those practicing before the International Trade Commission, the ITC 337 Blog has a comprehensive summary of the latest trade secret cases filed before the ITC.
- In a post entitled “Can I Protect My Trade Secrets Via Social Media Policy,” James Douglass provides a nice recap of the recent National Labor Relations Board’s opinion on social media and how to draft enforceable social media policies to protect your trade secrets in Fisher & Philips’ Trade Secrets and Noncompete Blog.
- “You Want to Enforce a Non-Compete? Bad Facts, Sir, Give Me Some Bad Facts!” advises the Mass Law Blog. Well stated, Mass Law Blog, well stated.
- “Employers beware: Revisions of non-compete agreements are becoming essential” writes Richard Glovsky for Inside Counsel. Richard’s article details the challenges of enforcing non-competes against employees who are promoted, reassigned or take on additional responsibilities.
- How will the America Invents Act’s “prior user rights” impact the bio and pharma industries? The Patent Docs Blog has a post that concisely summarizes the debate at the recent BIO International conference (the post concludes that the impact may be minimal).
- Are you representing both the employee accused of stealing trade secrets and his/her new employer? Then you should read “Three Pitfalls of Joint Representation in Non-Compete Cases” by W. Mark Bennet for Strasburger’s NonCompete Blog.
Cybersecurity:
- “Lawyers Get Vigilant on Cybersecurity” reports The Wall Street Journal. For more on this issue, please see my February post detailing increasing cyberattacks directed at lawyers.
- The latest headache in BYOD? “Who Owns the Email?” asks Gardere’s Peter Vogel in his Internet, Information Technology and e-Discovery Blog.
- Monica Bay details “The Fast Rise of the ‘Bring Your Own Device’ Buzzword” in Corporate Counsel.
- For an interesting take on the ongoing debate over the pending cybersecurity legislation, check out Forbes writer Ken Silverstein’s “Cyber Security Debate Pits Corporate Interests Against National Security.”
- Looking for “An App that Encrypts, Shreds, Hashes and Salts”? Check out this post on The New York Times Bits Blog.
News You Can Use: