Trading Secrets : Trade Secrets Lawyers & Attorneys : Seyfarth Shaw Law Firm : Computer Fraud, Confidentiality Agreements, Corporate Espionage

I start by warning you that this case is old, over 5 years old, in fact.  However, when it arrived in my regular e-mail of case synopses, I thought I would take a look, and given the long, slow holiday week, I thought it might have a nugget to share and to keep in mind as we go into 2010. 

The case, The Newark Group, Inc. v. Sauter, Civ. Action No. C2:01-CV-1247, 2004 WL 5782100 (S.D. Ohio), was pending back in 2004.  This particular opinion, on Defendants' motion to strike Plaintiff's jury demand, was decided in April 2004.  Nevertheless, I think the point the court makes may be helpful. 

The question before the court on Defendant's motion was whether the plaintiff was entitled to a trial by jury on its claims for damages in a trade secrets case under a theory of unjust enrichment.  Defendants argued that under a trade secret case, an unjust enrichment claim was nothing more than a claim in equity, not triable to a jury. 

The court easily rejected the claim under Ohio's Trade Secret Misappropriation Act.  In explaining its decision, the court noted that the trade secret statute provides several methods by which to calculate damages, including unjust enrichment.  And, that the statute

acknowledges that calculating monetary damages for trade secret misappropriation may be difficult to ascertain, it therefore provides specific methods by which to calculate monetary damages.  One method for measuring damages is by calculating the amount of unjust enrichment caused by such misappropriation.  The fact that the statute contemplates different means of calculating damages does not transform the statutorily created legal theory of recovery . . . to become an equitable claim to relief. 

The other two methods of calculating damages:  actual loss caused by the misappropriation and imposition of a reasonable royalty also are not equitable relief, just other methods of calculating the monetary damages available to a successful plaintiff.  Even though the statute refers to "equitable," it means fair.  The damages remedies are legal in nature and thus triable to a jury -- even if difficult to ascertain.

Happy New Year to all!

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

The Ohio 12th District Court of Appeals recently upheld a lower court’s injunction against two former employees and their new employer in light of defendants’ apparent breach of duty of loyalty, misappropriation of trade secrets, and tortious interference with business relations. DK Prods., Inc. v. Miller, Case No. CA2008-05-060, 2009 WL 243089 (Ohio Ct. App. 12 Dist. Feb. 2, 2009)

System Cycle, a branch of DK Products, Inc., located in Springboro, Ohio, distributes BMX bicycles, parts and accessories to bicycle retailers throughout the United States. System Cycle employed Matthew Miller and Charles Johantges until System Cycle learned that Miller and Johantges had disclosed sensitive financial information to vendors and attempted to broker distribution deals on behalf of Two Zero Distribution, Inc., a company created by Miller while Miller and Johantges were still employed by System Cycle (“Two Zero”). Per a Dayton Daily News article discussing the case, System Cycle learned about Miller and Johantges’s activities by intercepting an e-mail from the defendants to one of System Cycle’s customers.  

 The Ohio courts granted System Cycle ’s request for injunctive relief on each of the counts in the complaint, rejecting each and everyone of defendants’ counter-arguments. With respect to System Cycle’s tortious interference claim that defendants improperly interfered with System Cycle’s existing business relationships through improper disclosure of financial information, defendants argued that System Cycle had not showed evidence of malice on their part, but the Court of Appeals declined to find that malice is a necessary showing for a claim of tortious interference. Additionally, there was ample evidence of irreparable harm to System Cycle. Even defendant Miller admitted that his disclosure of confidential financial information regarding System Cycle was “pretty devastating.”

The courts also rejected Defendants’ challenge to the injunction as it related to the trade secret misappropriation claim. Defendants had asserted that the injunction was improper because System Cycle did not proffer evidence that they used System Cycle’s trade secrets Yet, the Court of Appeals pointed to Defendant Miller’s admission that he had discussed certain trade secret information with a vendor, which falls within the definition of “misappropriation” under the Ohio Uniform Trade Secret Act. 

Defendants’ final challenge was to the injunction as a remedy for the apparent breach of defendants’ duties of good faith and loyalty. The defendants contended that System Cycle failed to show irreparable injury in connection with this claim, but the defense fell on deaf ears. The Court of Appeals deflected that criticism by pointing to the very real potential for irreparable injury in connection with the other two claims.

As a result, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s order enjoining Defendants from solicitng System Cycle’s customers and from misappropriating System Cycle’s confidential information for the benefit of Two Zero. The case now returns to the trial court, where System Cycle may pursue a permanent injunction and money damages.

The key to System Cycle’s success likely had much to do with the early interception of the e-mail from Miller to a System Cycle customer. Procedures designed to prevent the loss of trade secrets through electronic means are becoming more commonplace and more important to protecting a company’s intellectual property. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that whether a trade secret is a protectable interest is an equitable question not affected by the lack of a written instrument. Niemi v. NHK Spring Company, --- F.3d ---, 2008 WL 4273123 (6th Cir. Sept. 19, 2008).

Richard Niemi is an individual engineer who provides various automobile company manufacturers with designs related to stabilizer bars for automobiles. In the early 1990s, Niemi had an idea for a new method of stabilizer-bar manufacturing, which interested his long term client, New Mather Metals (a subsidiary of Defendant NHK Spring Co.) Although the purchase order through which New Mather ordered the manufacturing tooling, which Niemi claimed to be a “trade secret,” included the clause that “no other or different terms or conditions shall apply to this order unless specifically agreed to in writing. . .”, Niemi claimed that he had assurances that his new method would be kept “confidential.” In order to protect itself from Niemi’s selling his designs to its competitors, New Mather requested that Niemi enter into a “exclusivity agreement,” which Niemi described as “reciprocal” despite any language in the instrument to that effect. “No further writing was needed, in Niemi’s estimation, because New Mather’s obligation represented a continuation of an arrangement that had been in place for 25 or 30 years . . . .” 

Niemi learned a few years later that New Mather had disclosed his stabilizer manufacturing trade secret to other designers, and he brought an action against New Mather and its parent companies for misappropriation of trade secrets, as well as for other claims. The district court ultimately granted summary judgment to Defendants on the trade secrets claim, finding that Niemi had not taken sufficient steps to keep his designs secret. 

In reviewing Niemi’s appeal of judgment against his trade secrets claim, the Sixth Circuit considered Ohio’s adopted Uniform Trade Secrets Act, particularly focusing on the factor requiring “reasonable” efforts to maintain secrecy. Ultimately, it concluded that there were direct, disputed material facts sufficient to warrant reversal of the district court.

The decision is most significant, however, for the reasoning underlying its rejection of one of Defendants’ arguments; namely, that Niemi’s “oral reciprocal exclusivity agreement” was barred by the statute of frauds. In rejecting that argument, the court quoted Ohio law in noting that “protection afforded by trade secret laws is not a function of property interests or contract rights, but of ‘equitable principles of good faith applicable to confidential relationships.’” In other words, whether there is a contract or property interest in the trade secrets is “irrelevant” because trade secret protection derives from equity.

The progenitor of the principle quoted by the Sixth Circuit was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ opinion in Masland, where he observed that, in “explaining the nature of a trade secret . . . trade secret laws are not those of property but the equitable principles of good faith applicable to confidential relationships.” Valco Cincinnati v. N & D Machining Service, Inc., 492 N.E.2d 814, 817 (Ohio 1986) (citing E.I. Du pont de Nemours Powder Co. v. Masland, 244 U.S. 100 (1917) (Holmes, J.)). 

In any event, although the fundamental character of a trade secret may be one of confidence protected by equity, there is some dispute among the states regarding whether a trade secret is a property right. Compare Envirotech Corp. v. Callahan, 872 P.2d 487, 494 (Utah App. 1994) (trade secret is a property right) with ConFold Pacific, Inc. v. Polaris Industries, Inc., 433 F.3d 952, 959 (7th Cir. 2006) (holding that, under Wisconsin law, a trade secret is not a property right but instead an interest protectable by contract).

The Sixth Circuit is correct that the lack of a written instrument does not itself negate a claim under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. Certainly, if the existence of a written agreement – such as the “oral” mutual exclusivity and confidentiality agreement present in Niemi – would tend to increase the likelihood of a protectable trade secret, then its absence should mitigate against it.  But the Sixth Circuit seemed to go a step further in concluding that because a trade secret’s nature is one of equity, the lack of a contractual or property claim renders wholly “irrelevant” the lack of a written instrument. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks (1)
• Share Link