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 […]
7 Questions to Answer Before You Sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement
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 […]
Top 10 Mistakes to Avoid Managing Your Company’s Trade Secrets
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 […]
Grand Jury Indicts Chinese Energy Company and Affiliates on Trade Secret Charges
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 […]
Why Conduct an Intellectual Property Audit
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 […]