Protecting and Enforcing Your Trade Secrets in California and Beyond

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An Award of Injunctive Relief Does Not Preclude Continuing Rights to Monetary Damages The primary objective in filing a lawsuit involving misappropriation of a trade secret is to stop the use and disclosure of your critical business information.  But even if your company succeeds in blocking the use of your trade secrets by obtaining an …Read more

10 Tips to Protect Confidential Information When Considering Selling Your Company

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So you’re thinking about selling your company because you’ve finally received an offer you think is reflective of all the hard work you and your partners and employees invested over all those years. It’s inevitable that you will have to share some confidential information about your company with the potential buyers during the course of …Read more

7 Questions to Answer Before You Sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement

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Before your company considers sharing its technology or other proprietary information with a potential strategic or commercial partner, you will want to ensure that the information is kept secret and cannot be used for any unauthorized purpose. This is where a non-disclosure agreement (“NDA”) may be useful to you. An NDA is a legally binding …Read more

Top 10 Mistakes to Avoid Managing Your Company’s Trade Secrets

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Whether you’re running a newly minted start-up or leading an established corporation, genuine trade secrets will almost always provide your company with a competitive edge in the marketplace under both federal and state law. But you must handle them properly. Unfortunately, that edge can deteriorate, or vanish entirely, if your company makes one or more …Read more

Grand Jury Indicts Chinese Energy Company and Affiliates on Trade Secret Charges

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Another new indictment alleging misappropriation of U.S. oil and gas trade secrets by a Chinese energy company, its U.S. based affiliate, and an executive officer was recently handed down by the U.S. Department of Justice. It is another example in a recent string of trade secret charges involving Chinese companies and Chinese nationals operating in …Read more

Why Conduct an Intellectual Property Audit

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As we discussed in our recent post How to Conduct Intellectual Property Audits, your company’s intellectual property (IP) is among its most important and valuable assets. The goals of an audit of that IP are to: 1) determine what IP your company owns, and 2) develop a strategy to effectively use and manage those assets …Read more

How to Conduct Intellectual Property Audits to Protect and Maximize the Value of Your Company’s IP

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Intellectual property – which include patents, copyrights, trade secrets and trademarks – is among your company’s most important and valuable assets. It defines your brand and gives you a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Whatever goods or services your company may offer, protecting your IP portfolio should be among your company’s most important business goals. …Read more

How to Resolve a Trade Secret Lawsuit by Entering a Standstill Agreement

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Why litigate a case for months or years, only to arrive at a settlement that would have been possible before the case began? In many cases, neither litigant would choose this approach, but it happens quite often nonetheless. About 60 percent of trade secret cases filed in federal court in the last decade ended in …Read more

How to Manage Trade Secret Litigation Costs

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Trade secret litigation can be expensive. Whether you’re bringing a lawsuit to protect your secrets or defending against alleged misappropriation by your company, here are some useful strategies to manage trade secret litigation costs. Identify the Trade Secrets Early Identifying the trade secrets involved in misappropriation litigation is just the beginning. Well before filing a …Read more