Litigation

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Legal regimes are shifting, including in the intellectual property world as businesses increasingly seek the protection of trade secrets rather than patents to secure their confidential information. When the Defend Trade Secrets Act was passed in 2016, trade secret litigation skyrocketed, increasing more than 25 percent in a single year. While the number of trade secret cases filed in federal court fell briefly during COVID, that number is back on the rise, with over 1,200 cases filed last year. Meanwhile, patent litigation is experiencing the opposite trend: the number of patent cases filed in 2023 fell to their lowest levels since 2010. These trends highlight a shift in how businesses are protecting their companies’ confidential information that reflects an increased desire for comprehensive yet informal protection.Continue Reading The Rise of Trade Secret Litigation

Trade secret litigation presents a variety of procedural and practical complexities at every stage of the proceeding. One of the most important—yet often overlooked—issues in these cases can be summarized by the following question:
Continue Reading Signed, Sealed, Delivered? Fifth Circuit Finds Sealing of Sensitive Information Requires Far More Than a Protective Order

Employers faced with an apparent trade secret misappropriation by former employees must decide what jurisdiction to bring suit in.  For an employer headquartered outside of California who employs California residents  working primarily in California, choice of law and forum selection clauses favoring states other than California may be ineffective against them unless they had counsel who negotiated the provisions on their behalves.  (Cal. Lab. Code § 925.)  A recent California Court of Appeal decision highlighted this point, and found that where a California employee is sued by the employer for trade secret misappropriation in a separate state based on an out-of-state forum selection clause, the employee may separately sue in California to void the provision, despite the ongoing litigation in a sister state (See LGCY Power, LLC v. The Superior Court,  75 Cal. App. 5th 844 (2022).)
Continue Reading California Labor Code Section 925: A Word of Caution for Out-of-State Employers of California Employees