332 results for 'cat:"Trade Secrets"'.
J. Frimpong grants in part a motion for monetary sanctions in the amount of $149,787 against an importer and its counsel for causing a mistrial in a trade secrets suit against former employees who formed a competitive business. The importer's counsel asked one of the former employees a question concerning a settlement communication during the trial, which "fairly well and truly tainted" the jury. The judge granted the motion for mistrial, recused himself, and the case was transferred to another judge. The judge properly exercised his discretion in granting a mistrial. He held a hearing with the parties and considered their arguments prior to granting the mistrial.
Court: USDC Central District of California, Judge: Frimpong, Filed On: February 6, 2024, Case #: 2:22cv2120, NOS: Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) - Property Rights, Categories: Sanctions, trade Secrets
J. Starr denies, in part, a former employee's motion for summary judgment on a motorsports company's trade secrets and other claims. There are questions of fact regarding the company's claims for unfair competition, breach of contract and trade secret misappropriation, among others.
Court: USDC Northern District of Texas , Judge: Starr, Filed On: February 6, 2024, Case #: 3:21cv2180, NOS: Trademark - Property Rights, Categories: Employment, trade Secrets, Contract
[Consolidated.] J. Brody finds that one of two trial courts hearing aspects of the same dispute over allegedly poached employees and trade secrets abused its discretion when it increased an award from $1 million to $2.3 million, as the award was not the result of passion or prejudice, and its injunctive order was overly broad. The second trial court properly held that the preliminary injunction was overly broad and unenforceable since it restrained lawful conduct. Reversed in part.
Court: Idaho Supreme Court, Judge: Brody, Filed On: February 2, 2024, Case #: 49418, Categories: trade Secrets, Damages, Interference With Contract
J. Pechman declines to dismiss the mental health service's complaint that two of its former therapists used the mental health service's trade secrets to form the mental health company. The mental health service sufficiently pleads a connection between its DTSA claim and interstate commerce claim, because it alleges that its clients paid for its services through interstate insurance plans such as Medicare while other clients came from outside Washington state, and one of the former therapists solicited many of these clients via email, which affects interstate commerce.
Court: USDC Western District of Washington, Judge: Pechman, Filed On: February 1, 2024, Case #: 2:23cv1239, NOS: Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) - Property Rights, Categories: trade Secrets, Jurisdiction
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J. Jewell partly grants mandamus relief in a dispute over the discovery order in a misappropriation of trade secrets case. The former employee should not have been compelled to turn over the Western Digital hard drive without the court addressing privileged or confidential data on the device. Also, the former employee should not have been compelled to turn over the USB storage device since he met his discovery obligations for the device.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Jewell, Filed On: January 30, 2024, Case #: 14-23-00183-CV, Categories: trade Secrets, Discovery
J. Land denies the parent charity's motion to dismiss the state charity's second amended counterclaim for misappropriation of trade secrets and breach of contract. The state charity sufficiently alleged that its donor list was a protectable trade secret and that the parent charity engaged in misappropriation by accessing the donor list under false pretenses and by sharing it with other charity chapters. However, the motion is granted to the extent that the state charity brings an independent, separate claim for breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing.
Court: USDC Middle District of Georgia, Judge: Land, Filed On: January 26, 2024, Case #: 4:22cv207, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: trade Secrets, Contract
J. Carr grants the assisted living facility's motion for sanctions against the former employee and her new employer, ruling the employee's admission she knew of a litigation hold shortly after accepting the job offer from the competitor contradicts her claim she was unaware she could not delete thousands of text messages and is sufficient to prove spoliation of evidence. Therefore, the jury in any eventual trial will be instructed to infer the deleted messages were efforts by the competitor to solicit former employees to violate restrictive covenants.
Court: USDC Northern District of Ohio, Judge: Carr, Filed On: January 25, 2024, Case #: 3:22cv606, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Jury, Sanctions, trade Secrets
J. Nelson grants the environmental management company's motion for a preliminary injunction for its complaint that its former employees misappropriated the company's trade secrets and solicited its employees and customers. The company will likely suffer irreparable harm without a preliminary injunction because the two former employees had access to the company's confidential information and trade secrets, including the company's customer database for multifamily customers, and they could misuse it.
Court: USDC Oregon, Judge: Nelson, Filed On: January 25, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv1004, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: trade Secrets, Contract, Injunction
J. Ho grants, in part, a realty company's motion for fee shifting as a sanction against an attorney in a trade secrets case. The attorney relied on assumptions, rather than facts, regarding the existence of requested records when he refused to comply with certain discovery orders.
Court: USDC Southern District of Texas, Judge: Ho, Filed On: January 22, 2024, Case #: 4:22cv2847, NOS: Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) - Property Rights, Categories: Sanctions, trade Secrets, Discovery
J. Aspen partially grants the sued medical imaging equipment companies’ motions to reconsider the court’s earlier rulings in this trade secrets case. In those prior rulings, the court largely sided with the suing medical equipment companies by issuing a permanent injunction and civil contempt sanctions against the defendants, and ordering the latter to pay plaintiffs $2.4 million in attorney fees. Upon reconsideration, the court keeps the civil contempt sanctions in place and denies the motion to vacate the injunction, and also grants the plaintiffs’ motion for an additional $1.9 million in attorney fees.
Court: USDC Northern District of Illinois, Judge: Aspen, Filed On: January 19, 2024, Case #: 1:19cv2648, NOS: Other Statutory Actions - Other Suits, Categories: Health Care, trade Secrets, Attorney Fees
J. Boyle denies partial summary judgment for a medical imaging systems dealer after it sued a former field service engineer for compromising its trade secrets. The engineer had signed an ethics agreement in 2012 promising not to share confidential company information, but that was only contingent on his employment there, and he resigned in 2020. Also, the dealer has not provided specific enough documentation it alleges the engineer compromised to satisfy the trade secrets violation claim.
Court: USDC Eastern District of North Carolina, Judge: Boyle, Filed On: January 19, 2024, Case #: 5:20cv657, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Trade, trade Secrets, Contract
J. Alonso alternatingly grants and denies multiple parties’ motions for summary judgment in this dispute over the plaintiff trucking company’s trade secrets. The company uses the password-protected “Sylectus” software program to make bookings and maintain customer relations. The company claims several of its employees, led by a former manager, used confidential data in the Sylectus system to jump start their own competing freight company and pull in almost $3.5 million in ill-gotten revenue. The company brought multiple trade secret misappropriation, fraud, breach of loyalty and conspiracy charges against the former employees and the new competitor, but the court found that only the breach of loyalty count against the former manager has been sufficiently alleged. The court dismisses all other defendants from the suit, while also granting the manager’s motion to bar certain expert testimony, denying the company’s motion to seal certain documents, and placing sanctions on the manager for deleting certain Dropbox files that can no longer be used as evidence in the company’s case.
Court: USDC Northern District of Illinois, Judge: Alonso, Filed On: January 18, 2024, Case #: 1:21cv2903, NOS: Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) - Property Rights, Categories: Employment, Sanctions, trade Secrets
J. Bonilla declines to dismiss certain takings claims concerning the disclosure of confidential trade secrets belonging to a brand pharmaceutical company because genuine issues remain in dispute as to whether the FDA infringed the brand company's "right to exclude generics from the market" by sharing information with generic drug manufacturers.
Court: Court of Federal Claims, Judge: Bonilla, Filed On: January 18, 2024, Case #: 23-629C, Categories: Property, trade Secrets
[Consolidated.] J. Gibbons finds the lower court erroneously dismissed the false advertising claims filed by the windshield repair sealant manufacturer against the auto glass replacement company. Affidavits from commercial customers about statements made by the glass replacement company about the efficacy of sealant on cracks longer than six inches are sufficient to establish causation in the mind of a reasonable juror. Meanwhile, the Ohio Uniform Trade Secrets Act counterclaim filed by the glass replacement company was also improperly dismissed because the company had no reason to believe any of its trade secrets had been stolen by a former employee until his deposition in this litigation, which rendered the counterclaim timely. Reversed in part.
Court: 6th Circuit, Judge: Gibbons, Filed On: January 16, 2024, Case #: 22-3204, Categories: Civil Procedure, Fraud, trade Secrets
J. Immergut reserves ruling on Nike's motion to compel exhibits consisting of redacted minutes from a meeting among the computer store's board of directors held in August 2018, as well as a 17-page document shared by the computer store's former CEO about another executive. The issue for both exhibits must be resolved through in-camera review, because there is insufficiency regarding the computer store's privilege log entry and there is a lack of evidence of the privileged nature of the cover letter in the 17-page document.
Court: USDC Oregon, Judge: Immergut, Filed On: January 16, 2024, Case #: 3:21cv1556, NOS: Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) - Property Rights, Categories: trade Secrets, Discovery
J. Mays finds the trial court properly awarded the landscaping company more than $62,000 in damages for side work performed by the former employee while he was still employed. The employee's claim he only took on jobs the company could not handle was rebutted by a coworker's testimony the company was willing and able to complete all of the jobs the employee turned down so he could do the work on his own. Affirmed.
Court: Ohio Court Of Appeals, Judge: Mays, Filed On: January 11, 2024, Case #: 2024-Ohio-73, Categories: trade Secrets, Damages, Contract
J. Skavdahl mostly denies the credit health company's motion to dismiss the financial services company's complaint, which accuses the credit health company of using the financial services company's former employees to compete with and undermine the financial services company's business. The financial services company sufficiently alleges misappropriation of trade secrets under the Federal Defend Trade Secrets Act and the Wyoming Uniform Trade Secrets Act, because it adequately pleads the existence of the trade secrets it owns, that its former employees are contractually bound to keep those secrets, and that the alleged breach of this contract harms the financial services company.
Court: USDC Wyoming, Judge: Skavdahl, Filed On: January 9, 2024, Case #: 1:23cv110, NOS: Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) - Property Rights, Categories: trade Secrets, Contract
J. Gwin denies the roofing company's motion for a preliminary injunction against its former sales employee, ruling none of the more than 2,000 files taken by the employee before he left to join a competitor constitute trade secrets because no proprietary software was stolen and any previous bid information was rendered useless by shifting material costs.
Court: USDC Northern District of Ohio, Judge: Gwin, Filed On: January 8, 2024, Case #: 1:23cv1341, NOS: Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) - Property Rights, Categories: trade Secrets, Contract, Injunction
J. DeGiusti grants the plaintiff company's motion to compel discovery from certain defendants in this lawsuit concerning "the sale of a small-town valve manufacturing company" and the non-solicitation provisions included in the asset purchase agreement. The defendants, which include a former employee and his new valve company, have a duty to supplement their responses.
Court: USDC Western District of Oklahoma , Judge: DeGiusti, Filed On: January 5, 2024, Case #: 5:21cv368, NOS: Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) - Property Rights, Categories: trade Secrets, Discovery, Contract
J. Bredar grants, in part, a financial service company’s motion for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction prohibiting two of its former employees from sharing confidential information. The company has shown a likelihood of success on its claim that trade secrets were misappropriated when one of the employees downloaded confidential files and passed them onto the other former employee.
Court: USDC Maryland, Judge: Bredar, Filed On: January 5, 2024, Case #: 1:23cv3446, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: trade Secrets, Interference With Contract
J. Daniel alternately grants and denies multiple dismissal motions from multiple defendants in this sprawling racketeering, trade secret and contract case brought against them by Walgreens. The pharmacy chain accuses the defendants — store landlords, former employees and real estate investors — of conspiring to buy and sell Walgreens-leased properties while denying it its right of first refusal in real estate transactions involving Walgreens locations. The court agrees it lacks jurisdiction over several of the named investors and dismisses the claims against them, while denying the motion to dismiss from the main real estate firms involved in the suit. Against these defendants, the court finds Walgreens has sufficiently alleged the firms conspired to box its right of first refusal out of real estate transactions. The court issues a more complex order against a single investor, finding insufficient support for Walgreens RICO claims against him but allowing its Defend Trade Secrets Act violation claim to mover forward.
Court: USDC Northern District of Illinois, Judge: Daniel, Filed On: January 4, 2024, Case #: 1:21cv2522, NOS: Other Statutory Actions - Other Suits, Categories: Real Estate, trade Secrets, Racketeering
J. Hightower partially grants a company’s motion to strike a competitor’s reply brief after it sued that competitor for alleged misappropriation of trade secrets and other claims because the first company argues that the reply, which includes more than 230 pages of exhibits, “includes reams of new evidence improperly introduced for the first time on reply.”
Court: USDC Western District of Texas , Judge: Hightower, Filed On: January 4, 2024, Case #: 1:22cv1327, NOS: Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) - Property Rights, Categories: Fraud, trade Secrets, Jurisdiction
J. Conrad grants a mortgage company’s renewed motion for preliminary injunction and request for finding of contempt against a similar lender in this ongoing trade secrets and unfair competition suit. The company’s first injunction was granted on Nov. 3, 2023, but the company presents convincing evidence that certain staff members of the lender continued to recruit the company’s workers to itself during litigation and after the injunction date. The company also offers sufficient evidence that the lender stole its confidential information in order to compete directly with it as well as to steal clients.
Court: USDC Western District of North Carolina, Judge: Conrad, Filed On: January 4, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv633, NOS: Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) - Property Rights, Categories: Contempt, trade Secrets, Unfair Competition