Here are the noteworthy trade secret and restrictive covenant posts from September and some of October:
Here are the noteworthy trade secret, restrictive covenant and cybersecurity posts from the month of August (warning, there are a lot):
Defend Trade Secrets Act
A recent opinion from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has stirred up a hornets’ nest of commentary because it appears to recognize the viability of the inevitable disclosure doctrine under the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA). Those familiar with the DTSA will recall that the inevitable disclosure doctrine was supposed to be prohibited under the DTSA because of California Senator Diane Feinstein’s concern that the doctrine might be enforced against California residents. Now, in what appears to be the first federal appellate court opinion construing the DTSA, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit may have further muddied the waters about the inevitable disclosure doctrine in Fres-co Systems USA, Inc. v. Hawkins, Case No. 16-3591, ___ Fed. Appx. __ (3rd Cir. 2017), 2017 WL 2376568 (June 1, 2017) (a link to the opinion can found here).
Continue Reading Fres-co Systems v. Hawkins: Did The Third Circuit Just Create More Confusion Around The DTSA’s Ban On The Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine?
One of the Defend Trade Secrets Act’s (DTSA) most noteworthy features is its provision forbidding injunctions that would prevent a former employee from entering into another employment agreement. As explained below, this provision,18 U.S.C. §1836(b)(3)(A)(i)(I), was included to preserve employee mobility and assuage concerns that covenants not to compete, as well as what is known as the “inevitable disclosure” doctrine, might be enforced by federal courts in states that have rejected their enforceability. Today’s post looks at the legislative history of that provision and how courts have interpreted it.
Continue Reading The Defend Trade Secrets Act After One Year: Injunctions Affecting New Employment
Yesterday, Uber released a letter that it had sent to Anthony Levandowski notifying him of its intention to terminate him as an employee because of his failure to cooperate with an Order issued on May 11, 2017 by U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup. While most of the media coverage of the case had previously focused on the portion of the Order effectively quarantining Levandowski from Uber’s development of its LiDAR technology, perhaps the most noteworthy portions of the Order proved to be Judge Alsup’s directives to Uber to get to the bottom of what Waymo trade secrets Levandowski might have shared with others at Uber. (A link to Judge Alsup’s Order can be found here). As I explain below, those two paragraphs of Judge Alsup’s Order inevitably set Uber against Levandowski and led to his termination.
Continue Reading Why Uber’s Firing of Anthony Levandowski Became Inevitable
There have been two significant developments in the Waymo lawsuit against Uber, which is unquestionably the highest profile trade secrets case of the year. In the first ruling, U.S. District Court William Alsup referred the record of the case to the U.S. Attorney’s office for investigation of possible theft of trade secrets. In the second, Judge Alsup released a copy of his opinion yesterday explaining the injunction that he entered against Uber last week. Significantly, Judge Alsup declined Waymo’s primary request to shut down Uber’s driverless car business.
Instead, he ordered that Uber continue to quarantine former Waymo engineer Anthony Levandowski from its development of Uber’s Lidar technology, the technology that was the subject of the trade secrets he was alleged to have stolen. Judge Alsup declined to shutdown of Uber’s driverless program because Waymo could not establish that Uber had used the trade secrets that Levandowski allegedly took with him.
Referring the record for a pending civil case to the local federal prosecutor is highly unusual (in fact, I can’t remember it being done) and appears to be directed at Levandowski and his other former Waymo colleagues who joined him at Uber. However, the injunction looks like a victory for Uber, at least at this early stage in the proceeding.
Continue Reading Waymo v. Uber: What Judge Alsup’s Injunction and Criminal Referral Mean for Uber
When moving to enforce a non-compete, the last thing a litigator wants to do is to stumble out of the gates and struggle over a profound legal issue that could delay consideration of that normally urgent request. A new and little-talked-about section of the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), however, has the potential to trip up employers seeking to enforce non-competes if they are not prepared to address this new entanglement.
There has been a significant amount of commentary about the DTSA and its new amendments since President Obama signed the DTSA into law on May 11, 2016. The “whistle-blower” immunity and ex parte seizure order, for example, have generated the most discussion to this point. However, the section of the DTSA that may have the greatest future impact on litigation under the DTSA is 18 U.S.C. §1839(3)(A)(i)(1)(I), which prohibits injunctions that “prevent a person from entering into an employment relationship.”
That new provision, which I will refer to as the “No-Ban-on-Employment” provision, was intended to curb, if not eliminate, the use of the inevitable disclosure doctrine under the DTSA. However, it may have a significant unintended consequence–namely, it may complicate employers’ efforts to enforce non-competes through temporary restraining orders (TRO), the key legal mechanism for non-compete disputes. For the reasons below, employers may want to reconsider invoking the DTSA when they want to enforce their non-competes because of the potential complications of this section’s language and instead opt to file them in state court, at least in the short-term. As the DTSA is likely to overtake the Uniform Trade Secret Act (UTSA) as the dominant statutory regime for trade secret law, this DTSA provision may well set another blow in motion to the viability of the non-compete as an effective tool to protect trade secrets.Continue Reading Does the Defend Trade Secrets Act Contain a Potential Roadblock for Non-Competes? Why the DTSA’s Limitations on the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine May Complicate Enforcing Non-Competes
The AIPLA Trade Secret Summit: High Points regarding Injunctions, Trade Secret Identification, High Tech Cases and Criminal Referrals
Continue Reading The AIPLA Trade Secrets Summit: High Points regarding Injunctions, Trade Secret Identification, High Tech Cases and Criminal Referrals
Highlights from the AIPLA Trade Secrets Summit: The Challenges of Trade Secret Litigation on the In-House/Outside Counsel Relationship
Continue Reading Highlights from the AIPLA Trade Secrets Summit: The Challenges of Trade Secret Litigation on the In-House/Outside Counsel Relationship
Thursday Wrap-Up (June 13, 2013): Noteworthy Trade Secret, Non-Compete and Cybersecurity News from the Web
Continue Reading Thursday Wrap-Up (June 13, 2013): Noteworthy Trade Secret, Non-Compete and Cybersecurity News from the Web