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
Franchisors: Are You Covering Your Digital Assets?
Several high profile ransomware attacks have recently rocked the franchise world fomenting uncertainty and anxiety about franchisors’ legal obligations and liability. Ransomware attacks essentially kidnap a company by shutting down its systems and holdings its data hostage until a ransom fee is paid. In addition to the quantifiable hard costs of paying ransom and hiring experts to mitigate damage and re/build cyber defenses, ransomware victims can be damaged by: (a) third-party liability to the customers and other original owners of compromised data; (b) interruption of business operations during the course of and recovery from an attack; and (c) injury to reputation value in the loss of consumer confidence, appearance of incompetence, and customer attrition. In today’s digital golden era, data is among the world’s most valuable assets, earning the tagline: “data is the new oil.” It therefore comes as no surprise that cybersecurity, which has been a hot topic for years, is garnering increased attention and resources from businesses of all sizes and stages. Yet with each new development in defensive cybersecurity, cybercriminals come up with just as many ways to get around those defenses.
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Seyfarth Partner Jesse Coleman to Present “Recent Trends in Protecting and Exploiting Trade Secrets” Program at Licensing Executives Society (LES) Houston Event
Seyfarth Partner Jesse Coleman is presenting the “Recent Trends in Protecting and Exploiting Trade Secrets” program at an LES Houston event on August 28 at The Briar Club in Houston.
Trade secrets may variously include technologies, processes, formulas, and sensitive customer information. Accordingly, trade secrets often confer significant profit and competitive advantage to their owner. For this reason, companies are
Continue Reading Seyfarth Partner Jesse Coleman to Present “Recent Trends in Protecting and Exploiting Trade Secrets” Program at Licensing Executives Society (LES) Houston Event
The Increasing Importance of Trade Secrets and Trade Secret Asset Management Explained
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.
The Neglected Step-Child of IP
Trade secrets have, up until recently, been somewhat ignored. When I started to pay attention to trade secrets, some of my colleagues and contacts probably thought that I was mad.
After all, trade secrets were not included in many IP educational sessions. The subject rarely came up at IP conferences and seminars. This form of IP was not addressed by most IP Law Firms, even so called full service IP Law Firms. It clearly was not in the ‘job spec’ of many in-house IP Managers or Chief IP Officers.
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Upcoming Webinar! Cybesecurity: Securities Laws and Governance Considerations for Public Companies
On May 7 at 12 p.m. Central, Seyfarth attorneys Blake Hornick, Scott Carlson, and Michael Dunn are presenting a cybersecurity CLE webinar.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is promoting more robust disclosures regarding cybersecurity risks, controls, and incidents for investors, placing increased responsibility on public companies due to the “grave threats” cyber poses on the markets. With cyber high
Cyberattacks a Growing Concern for Commercial Real Estate Executives
Seyfarth has released the results of its fourth annual Real Estate Market Sentiment Survey, which polled commercial real estate executives around the country from all sectors. Of interest to our readers, this year’s survey revealed that 69% of respondents are concerned about a cyberattack hitting their business in 2019, a significant increase compared to last year (46%).
Cybersecurity isn’t just for technology companies anymore. More and more, we are seeing other critical infrastructure participants becoming targets of cybersecurity attacks. Transportation, construction, and other real property-heavy industries are starting to catch the eye of sophisticated hacking teams – both criminal as well as nation-state sponsored groups.
There are two different threat models in the real estate market: the builder and the manager.
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Seyfarth Shaw is pleased to announce the publication of the 2018 Trading Secrets Year in Review!
The 2018 Trading Secrets Year in Review is a compilation of our significant blog posts from throughout the year and is categorized by specific topics such as: Trade Secrets, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, Non-Compete & Restrictive Covenants, Legislation, International, and Social Media and Privacy. As demonstrated by our specific blog entries, including our Top 10 Developments and Headlines,
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Upcoming Conference! Cyber Risk Management Facing Boards, C-Suites & General Counsel
Prevention, Crisis Management, and Mitigating Personal Liability
Thursday, January 31, 2019
8:00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Breakfast & Registration
8:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Program
Seyfarth Shaw LLP New York Office
The New York Times Building
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018
Seyfarth Attorneys:
Kevin Lesinski
Richard Lutkus
Gregory Markel
William Prickett
There is no cost to attend but
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Fiduciary Duties with Respect to Trade Secrets for Dual or Multiple Directors
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.
Introduction
The purpose of this short paper is to ‘join the dots’ between a director’s fiduciary duties and especially a person holding dual or multiple directorships and trade secrets.
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2018 Trade Secrets and Non-Competes Webinar Series Year in Review
Throughout 2018, Seyfarth Shaw’s dedicated Trade Secrets, Computer Fraud & Non-Competes Practice Group hosted a series of CLE webinars that addressed significant issues facing clients today in this important and ever-changing area of law. The series consisted of seven webinars:
- 2017 National Year in Review: What You Need to Know About the Recent Cases/Developments in Trade Secrets, Non-Compete and Computer Fraud Law
- Protecting Confidential Information and Client Relationships in the Financial Services Industry
- The Anatomy of a Trade Secret Audit
- Protecting Trade Secrets from Cyber and Other Threats
- 2018 Massachusetts Non-Compete and Trade Secrets Reform
- Protecting Trade Secrets Abroad and Enforcing Rights Abroad and in the U.S.
- Criminal Trade Secret Theft: What You Need to Know
As a conclusion to this well-received 2018 webinar series, we compiled a list of key takeaway points for each program, which are listed below. For those clients who missed any of the programs in this year’s series, recordings of the webinars are available on the blog, or you may click on the title of each available webinar below for the online recording. Seyfarth Trade Secrets, Computer Fraud & Non-Compete attorneys are happy to discuss presenting similar presentations to your company for CLE credit. Seyfarth will continue its trade secrets webinar programming in 2019, and we will release the 2019 trade secrets webinar series topics in the coming weeks.
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