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As a special feature of our blog—guest postings by experts, clients, and other professionals—please enjoy this blog entry from Donal O’Connell, Managing Director of Chawton Innovation Services Ltd.

Managing trade secrets belonging to Third Parties:

At first glance, you may be somewhat perplexed by the title. When and why should a company be concerned about managing trade secrets belonging to some 3rd party? It is tough enough for most companies to properly and professionally manage their own trade secrets, not to mind worrying about the trade secrets belonging to others. However, more and more, companies are indeed facing the challenge of having to manage trade secrets belonging to others. Allow me to explain.
Continue Reading The Sharing of Trade Secrets with Others

As a special feature of our blog—guest postings by experts, clients, and other professionals—please enjoy this blog entry from Jeremy Morton, Partner at Harbottle & Lewis LLP, London, UK.

For the first time ever, we have UK-wide legislation that concerns the protection of confidential information. Modifying its approach in light of a recent consultation exercise, the UK government introduced The Trade Secrets (Enforcement, etc.) Regulations 2018 on June 9, to implement the EU Trade Secrets Directive 2016/943.
Continue Reading UK Adopts New Trade Secrets Legislation

As a special feature of our blog—guest postings by experts, clients, and other professionals—please enjoy this blog entry from Donal O’Connell, Managing Director of Chawton Innovation Services Ltd.

An audit is the examination of a specific aspect of an organization, ideally by someone independent of that organization.

The purpose of an audit is to provide independent assurance that an organization’s management, governance, and processes are operating effectively and that any associated assets are being properly and professionally managed.
Continue Reading Trade Secrets Audit

As a special feature of our blog—guest postings by experts, clients, and other professionals—please enjoy this blog entry from Donal O’Connell, Managing Director of Chawton Innovation Services Ltd., and Oliver Treidler, Managing Director of TP&C GmbH.

Introduction:

Any business professor will tell you that the value of companies has been shifting markedly from tangible assets, “bricks and mortar,” to intangible assets like intellectual property (IP) in recent years.
Continue Reading The Valuation of Trade Secrets

As a special feature of our blog—guest postings by experts, clients, and other professionals—please enjoy this blog entry from Jeremy Morton, Partner at Harbottle & Lewis LLP, London, UK.

The UK government has finally launched a consultation on its proposed “Trade Secrets (Enforcement, etc) Regulations 2018,” in advance of the June 9, 2018, deadline to implement the EU Trade Secrets Directive of 2016. Responses to the consultation are due by March 16.
Continue Reading UK Reveals Its Future Approach to Trade Secrets

As a special feature of our blog—special guest postings by experts, clients, and other professionals—please enjoy this blog entry from Jonathan Karchmer, a senior managing consultant at iDiscovery Solutions.

Determining whether programs or malware actually ran on a system is an important goal of seasoned examiners when investigating computer evidence. Generally, there are several artifacts left behind anytime executables are run—regardless of whether the program is Outlook, Chrome, or something malicious. Today we’ll cover some artifacts we encounter on Windows systems.
Continue Reading Locating Digital Breadcrumbs: Programs Can Run, But They Can’t Hide

As a special feature of our blog—special guest postings by experts, clients, and other professionals—please enjoy this blog entry from Charlie Platt, a director at iDiscovery Solutions.

It’s Friday afternoon and the conversation goes a little like this, “Wait, what? They’re leaving? Where are they going? Is there any opportunity to help them reconsider?”

When a key employee departs an organization, it can take a toll on clients and colleagues, productivity, and morale. What follows is a rush of activity: current projects are reviewed, transition plans are quickly drawn up and put in place, and decisions are made about how to replace the departing employee and how to communicate the departure to the rest of the firm and clients. 
Continue Reading Key Employee Departures and Trade Secret Risk Assessment

shutterstock_377009158As a special feature of our blog—special guest postings by experts, clients, and other professionals—please enjoy this blog entry from Bobby R. Williams, Jr., a senior consultant at iDiscovery Solutions.

When litigation looms or a data preservation notice is sent out, key individuals or parties might try to delete data to avoid discovery – despite well-publicized horror stories regarding data destruction, phone and email wiping, and the risks of spoliation and sanctions. In many cases, if we find an absence of evidence during an examination, we typically also find evidence of destruction. We refer to these individuals as “Wipers.”

Wipers are the folks who roll the dice and try to game the system. They have enough knowledge to know how to destroy data, feel like they can get away with it, and take a chance. “The document is gone, aha!” might say the Wiper. However, Wipers still run into problems they didn’t anticipate. Even if they manage to delete or destroy the incriminating document or email, they’ve usually taken the time to install and run data destruction software, leaving behind associated artifacts showing the download and usage of such software. Another thing Wipers usually don’t consider: they leave behind other artifacts and data that gives us a clear picture of the document. Data showing when the document was created or modified, the folder it was saved in, even who opened it, when, and how many times. In trying to cover up the original footprints, they invariably left new footprints. And sometimes, even when a Wiper believes they completely deleted the document itself, it sometimes resides in a snapshot or backup they did not see.
Continue Reading How To Address Wipers In Trade Secret Cases

As a special feature of our blog—special guest postings by experts, clients, and other professionals—please enjoy this blog entry from Jonathan Karchmer, a senior managing consultant at iDiscovery Solutions with experience in managing projects dealing with computer forensic examination and experience advising counsel regarding intellectual property and trade secret theft. 

It was a matter of hours. A simple thing really. Was an email sent at 10:00 a.m. or at 2:00 p.m.? An entire case hung in the balance; if the email was sent at 10:00 a.m., the custodian had prior knowledge, if at 2:00 p.m., then not. Unfortunately, the email had been extracted and produced on multiple occasions during the litigation, each showing a different time. iDS was called in to do two things: First, determine the correct time the email was sent, and second, explain to the court how the time could have been incorrectly reported so often without nefarious intent.
Continue Reading How to Catch Trade Secret Thieves Who Try to Cover Their Tracks: A Forensic Perspective

As a special feature of our blog—special guest postings by experts, clients, and other professionals—please enjoy this blog entry from Daniel Garrie, senior partner and co-founder of Law & Forensics. 

This post originally appeared on the Legal Executive Institute blog. 

The dirty secret of trade secret disputes is that even if you win, it can be difficult to get back to where you started. It’s like closing the stable door after the horses have run off with trade secret disputes. A court or arbitration panel may not have trouble reaching findings of fact and conclusions of law, but the secrets are still out there. And ensuring that the trade secret information is entirely removed from the offending company’s systems is a lot harder than rounding up wild horses.
Continue Reading The Neutral Corner: Using Forensic Neutrals in Trade Secret Disputes