In the fifth installment of our 2022 Trade Secrets Webinar Series, Seyfarth attorneys Jesse Coleman, Matt Simmons, and Kevin Green discussed legal developments and trends in Texas trade secret and non-compete law and how it is similar to and diverse from other jurisdictions.
As a conclusion to this webinar, we compiled a summary of takeaways:
In June 2022, a federal judge sitting in the Southern District of New York issued an order denying defendants Lionbridge Technologies, Inc. (“Lionbridge”) and its parent company HIG Middle Market, LLC (“HIG”) attorneys’ fees and costs related to their assertion that plaintiff Transperfect Global, LLC (“Transperfect”) brought a misappropriation of trade secrets claim under the Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”) in bad faith. The 2019 lawsuit was filed roughly 15 months after completion of a bidding war for the sale of Transperfect in a Delaware court-supervised auction. One of the participants in the auction was HIG, which had acquired Lionbridge—a competitor of Transperfect—in February 2017. In its suit, Transperfect alleged that HIG engaged in “fake bidding” during the auction so that it could access trade secrets in the form of confidential pricing data and customer lists and improperly share them with Lionbridge to poach two of Transperfect’s biggest clients.
Continue Reading No Fees for Failure to Show “Bad Faith” in Prosecution of Trade Secrets Claim
Last week, in connection with a House Oversight hearing, Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) introduced legislation to restrict confidentiality provisions from covering claims of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. The “Accountability for Workplace Misconduct Act,” H.R. 8146, appears to be a federal effort to expedite the state-level trend to exempt discrimination, harassment, and retaliation information from confidentiality restrictions.
Over the last decade, lawmakers at the state and federal level have introduced and passed legislation designed to limit the reach of confidentiality provisions in certain circumstances. Those modifications include:
Continue Reading House Introduces Legislation Restricting Confidentiality Provisions in Settlement Agreements
A non-fungible token (“NFT”) is a type of financial asset that is made up of digital data stored in a blockchain. Clear as mud, right? The person or entity that owns the NFT records the ownership in the blockchain, which allows NFTs to be sold and traded. NFTs typically are made up of digital files such as photos, videos, and music. This can even expand to internet viral memes, like Disaster Girl, which became an NFT valued at $401,718.00. The market value of the NFT is linked directly to the digital file that it represents. And more critically, each NFT is uniquely identifiable, so in that way, is different from a cryptocurrency which is fungible.
Continue Reading NFT Company Seeks to Avail Itself of Trade Secret Protections
There have been some noteworthy recent decisions in trade secrets law. This blog post summarizes some of the significant decisions grouped by the hot topics below.
Continue Reading Recent Hot Topics and Developments in Trade Secrets Law
Robert Milligan, Seyfarth partner and co-chair of the firm’s Trade Secrets, Computer Fraud & Non-Competes group, and associate Alex Meier recently attended the Sedona Conference on Trade Secrets (Working Group 12) in Denver, Colorado. Working Group 12 seeks to aid judges and practitioners in developing consensus-based guidelines for managing trade secret litigation and protecting trade secrets.
Continue Reading Recap! The Sedona Conference on Trade Secrets (Working Group 12) in Denver
In the third installment of our 2022 Trade Secrets Webinar Series, Seyfarth attorneys Justin Beyer and Ian Long discussed employee mobility and its impact on trade secrets and non-compete agreements, and shared practical steps that companies can take to protect intellectual capital in today’s market.
As a follow up to this webinar, our team wanted to highlight:
• Protecting
Continue Reading Webinar Recap! Employee Mobility and Its Effects on Trade Secrets and Non-Competes
Members of Seyfarth’s Trade Secrets team recently worked on Trade Secret Litigation and Protection: A Practical Guide to the DTSA and CUTSA, a new 26-chapter treatise that explains the fundamentals and intricacies of trade secret law under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) and the California Uniform Trade Secret Act (CUTSA).
Robert Milligan—Seyfarth partner and co-chair of the
Continue Reading Seyfarth Trade Secrets Team Assists with Editing and Authoring New Trade Secrets Treatise
Seyfarth partner Jesse Coleman and associate Kevin Green authored an IP Litigator article focused on a recent DTSA/TUTSA lawsuit which involved the public disclosure of alleged trade secret in an expired patent. Read the full article from the March / April 2022 edition of IP Litigator here.
Continue Reading Seyfarth Attorneys Author Article on Texas Trade Secret Lawsuit
In the first program in the 2022 Trade Secrets Webinar Series, Seyfarth attorneys Michael Wexler, Robert Milligan, and James Yu reviewed noteworthy legislation, cases, and other legal developments from across the nation over the last year in the area of trade secrets and data theft, non-competes and other restrictive covenants, and computer fraud. Plus, they provided predictions for what to
Continue Reading Webinar Recap! 2021 Trade Secrets & Non-Competes Year in Review