Throughout 2021, our dedicated Trade Secrets, Computer Fraud & Non-Competes Practice Group hosted a series of CLE webinars that addressed significant trade secret and restrictive covenant issues facing clients today. This year’s series included:

  1. 2020 Year in Review: What You Need to Know about the Recent Cases and Developments in Trade Secrets, Non-Competes, and Computer Fraud Law
  2. Employee Termination & Data Repatriation in the Remote Work Environment
  3. The Connection Between Wage and Hour & Restrictive Covenant Law
  4. How and Why Texas is Different When it Comes to Trade Secrets and Restrictive Covenants
  5. Anatomy of an M&A Transaction: How to Issue Spot for Non-Compete, Trade Secrets/Confidential Information, and Intellectual Capital Concerns
  6. Overview of Non-Compete Legislation and Enforcement Issues from 2021

As a conclusion to our 2021 webinar series, we compiled a list of key takeaway points for each program. For those clients who missed any of the programs in this year’s series, recordings of all of our past webinars are available on the blog, or you may click on the link for each webinar below to view the online recording.
Continue Reading 2021 Trade Secrets Webinar Series: Takeaways & Recordings

In Seyfarth’s second installment in its 2021 Trade Secrets Webinar Series, Seyfarth attorneys Richard Lutkus, Bob Stevens, and Matthew Simmons outlined best practices and steps companies can take to continue to protect intellectual capital, including policies, protections, security concerns, and agreements needed to protect information in a remote environment.

As a conclusion to this webinar, we compiled a summary
Continue Reading Webinar Recap! Employee Termination & Data Repatriation in the Remote Work Environment

Thursday, April 1, 2021
1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. Eastern
12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. Central
11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Mountain
10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Pacific

Establishing a process, checklist, or set of best practices for employee termination and data repatriation is essential, especially in a remote work environment. Depending on the remote work policy, including whether there
Continue Reading Upcoming Webinar! Employee Termination & Data Repatriation in the Remote Work Environment

Robert Milligan authored an article in the Daily Journal, “Remote Workforces Increase Pressure On Keeping Trade Secrets Protected.”

The Seyfarth partner said that with more workers accessing, disclosing, using, and creating company information from their homes, prudent company leaders must ensure that they have appropriate procedures, training, and safeguards in place to protect company trade secrets. The article addresses five
Continue Reading Robert Milligan Authors Article in Daily Journal Concerning Protecting Trade Secrets With a Remote Workforce

From court closures and the way judges conduct appearances and trials to the expected wave of lawsuits across a multitude of areas and industries, the COVID-19 outbreak is having a notable impact in the litigation space—and is expected to for quite some time.

To help navigate the litigation landscape, we are kicking off a webinar series that will take a
Continue Reading Post-Pandemic Litigation Webinar Series

On May 13, 2020, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a joint Public Service Announcement (PSA) about a threat to academic institutions and business entities engaged in COVID-19-related research and development entitled People’s Republic of China (PRC) Targeting of COVID-19 Research Organizations.
Continue Reading FBI and CISA Issue Joint Warning to Academic Institutions and Research Organizations About Targeting of COVID-19 Research

With so many employees now working remotely through the COVID-19 pandemic—using new and sometimes untested technologies—we are taking this opportunity to collect real-time perspectives on what companies are doing to protect their trade secrets in the current climate.

To that end, we have created a brief anonymous survey that should take no more than three minutes to complete. The survey
Continue Reading Take Our Survey! Trade Secrets in the Time of COVID-19

In this unprecedented time, businesses are, more than ever, implementing and rapidly rolling out programs for remote or at-home work by employees. The quick changes in local and state governmental “shelter in place” instructions and Public Heath directives have placed significant strains on remote networks and caused local shortages of laptop computers at office supply and electronic stores across the country.
Continue Reading Cybersecurity, Data Privacy, and Compliance Issues Related to Remote Workers

When the COVID-19 crisis hit the United States (indeed, before it was even considered a “crisis” here), we provided tips for protecting a company’s trade secrets in the event employees were permitted to work from home. In the ensuing three weeks, not only have employees been permitted to work from home, but many companies have required it. Indeed, an ever-growing list of states, including California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania have issued stay-at-home orders and shut down all non-essential businesses for the time being. As a result, there are now millions of employees working remotely who are accustomed to working in an office setting. Indeed, according to a March 12, 2020, flash survey of more than 550 employers conducted by Seyfarth, nearly 85% of responding companies were actively encouraging employees to work from home in some or all parts of the country, and more than 65% were taking steps to provide capability for employees to be able to work from home who do not normally do so. Those numbers are likely even higher now.
Continue Reading Protecting Trade Secrets During a Pandemic: Think Twice Before Loosening Security Measures in the Name of Convenience and Efficiency

Fear of the coronavirus is causing many employers to permit—or in some cases mandate—employees to work remotely. While this measure is designed to minimize the risk of virus transmission, it presents an altogether different risk when it comes to protecting trade secrets, as employees have ripe opportunities to remove trade secrets and other sensitive information from company systems and databases. While remote access is ostensibly provided so that employees can perform their job functions from home, and may even be a necessity in that regard, some employees may take the opportunity to exploit the situation to more nefarious ends, and others may just be careless, which can lead to equally bad outcomes. In addition, employees’ external home networks may not have robust security on par with in-office network security.
Continue Reading Love in the Time of Coronavirus: Protecting Trade Secrets During a Pandemic