A good article in BNA by Eric W. Schweibenz and Lisa M. Mandrusiak argues that the recent trend in trade secret litigation has been to require plaintiffs to state with specificity early in litigation what trade secrets they claim the defendants stole. This prevents “fishing expeditions,” where plaintiffs bring vague claims for misappropriation of trade secrets in the hope that they’ll find something solid when they obtain documents and other information from defendants in discovery. … More
Monthly Archives: September 2012
Recent Judgment in Massachusetts Case Shows that Cases Involving Faithless Employees Sometimes Go to Trial and Result in Big Money Verdicts
As reported by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly last week (subscription required), late last year a Middlesex County jury found a defendant company liable for over $1.3 million in damages to the plaintiff competing company in a case involving the plaintiff’s former employee. The plaintiff, an energy broker, alleged that its former employee, while working for the plaintiff, secretly affiliated with the competing company, another energy broker, to divert the plaintiff’s customers and one of its energy programs to the defendant company. … More
The Key to Protecting Confidential Information from Being Taken by a Departing Employee to a Competitor: Planning
BNA has published a good article by David A. McManus, Prashanth Jayachandran, and Jason Burns on how an employer can protect its confidential information from being taken by a departing employee to a competitor. The key is to have a plan. Some of their more interesting points include:
- In addition to having certain employees sign non-disclosure agreements, an employer should have employees who use their own electronic devices to access company information sign a separate agreement permitting the employer to inspect the devices and delete company information upon termination of employment.…