Trade Secrets

September 15, 2006

FBM To Host IP Roundtable

As the Blawg has reported over the past 18 months, the U.S. Supreme Court has demonstrated an active interest in patent cases. Continuing that trend, it has already agreed to hear two cases involving patent issues in the upcoming term that starts in October. In KSR v. Teleflex, the Court will consider the test for obviousness applied by the Federal...

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July 17, 2006

Apple Decides Not To Challenge Ruling Protecting Bloggers’ Sources

We have learned that Apple Computer, Inc. will apparently not challenge the noteworthy California appellate decision rejecting its efforts to use the subpoena process to identify the source of leaked trade secret information about its upcoming products. As we reported earlier, Apple had pursued trade secret litigation against the anonymous sources of the leaked information, but had its efforts to...

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June 06, 2006

Court Draws Distinction Between "Customer List" and "Contact List" In Trade Secrets Litigation

In a May 31, 2006 decision, Judge Pratter of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted limited a preliminary injunction in favor of a pharmaceutical services company (Fisher Bioservices) against its former sales representative (Haas) who had started working for a competitor in Fisher Bioservices, Inc. v. Bilcare, Inc. Of particular interest is the court's discussion of what constitutes a "trade...

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June 01, 2006

California Recognizes Privacy And Shield Law Obstacles To Unmasking Source of Leaks In Trade Secret Dispute

In a noteworthy case pitting a trade secret plaintiff’s efforts to identify the source of the leaked information against bloggers’ rights as journalists, a California appeals court has rejected Apple Computer, Inc.’s efforts to subpoena e-mail received by the publishers of online news magazines. After inside information about Apple’s products was posted on a blog, Apple sued the anonymous sources...

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January 21, 2006

Government To Get Google’s Trade Secrets?

Internet search company Google has refused to hand over potentially millions of search engine records in response to a government subpoena seeking the information as justification for its fight against online child pornographers. Highlighting the all-important perception of internet privacy, the significance of Google’s search engine trade secrets and the value of online databases to the government, Google is now...

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September 21, 2005

New Trade Secret Decision

The California Court of Appeal has issued a decision of first impression in a trade secret case holding that the provision of C.C.P. 2019.202 (formerly C.C.P. 2019(d)), which prohibits discovery relating to trade secret claims until the plaintiff has identified the alleged misappropriated trade secrets with "reasonable particularity," is not just limited to discovery related to trade secret causes of...

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September 15, 2005

Two Wins Make A Settlement?

Just after both Microsoft and Google hailed a Washington state court judge’s decision on Tuesday that former Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee could not work for Google on products related to search and speech technologies but could act as a recruiter for Google’s operations in China as a victory, Microsoft offered to settle the matter once and for all. On September...

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May 31, 2005

Do You Want To Know A (Trade) Secret?

A district court in Utah recently held that information that is available to the public cannot be a trade secret. In MedSpring Group, Inc. v. Feng, MedSpring sought an injunction against a former employee who had started a competing company in the importation and sale of hemostatic gauze. The company contended that the former employee had misappropriated three of its...

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