Blogs

Many thanks to alum Attorney Alica Cabrera who was the main blogger during the period after she graduated from UNH Law. Alice is busy with the press of business and cannot blog about trade secrets any longer. As the sponsor of the blog, I will take back up the job. This blog is an asset of the UNH Law IP Mall website, the oldest open source IP information source on the internet. Keep an eye on the blog for:

- news
- state cases
- federal cases
- jury verdicts
- journal articles
- tips and strategies
- top information sources.

By: Alice Cabrera

The Department of Justice issued a "Summary of the Major U.S. Export Enforcement, Economic Espionage, Trade Secret and Embargo-Related Criminal Cases."

This report highlights the importance of trade secret protection and trade secret theft prosecution for the economic wellbeing of the United States. Public awareness of the repercussions of economic espionage and steps to prevent it are essential since this practice can better be tackled organically. Once the trade secrets are no longer such, even if prosecution is successful, the harm has been done. export-case-fact-sheet.pdf

By: Alison Grant

Wang had been accused of stealing trade secrets from Bridgestone's research facility and giving them to a Chinese polymer maker. The government said he used his insider status at Bridgestone to make off with confidential information such as the formulas and compound properties for race tires.

Prosecutors presented their case to U.S. District Judge James Gwin over two days in late September. Gwin then ruled there wasn't enough evidence to show that Wang was going to economically benefit from taking Bridgestone information or that he knew any theft would hurt the company.

With that, the case fell apart without ever getting into whether Wang actually took trade secrets.

To finish reading the rest of this interesting article from Cleveland.com, please click here.

By: By JACOB BUNGE And DOUG CAMERON

A former computer programmer for CME Group Inc. CME -0.40% on Wednesday pleaded guilty to charges that he stole information from the futures exchange operator while pursuing plans to improve a trading platform in China.

Chunlai Yang, a senior software engineer who worked at CME for 11 years, pleaded guilty to two counts of stealing trade secrets, according to the plea agreement disclosed by the U.S. attorney's office for the Northern District of Illinois.

According to the plea deal, Mr. Yang started working on technology powering CME's front-end trading systems in 2000 and was a senior software engineer at the time of his arrest. He admitted to downloading more than 10,000 files from CME computers, and planned to offer improved technology to the Zhangjiagang Exchange.

To finish reading this interesting article from The Wall Street Journal, please click here.

From: U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs

WASHINGTON--Kolon Industries Inc. and several of its executives and employees have been indicted for allegedly engaging in a multi-year campaign to steal trade secrets related to DuPont's Kevlar para-aramid fiber and Teijin Limited's Twaron para-aramid fiber. The indictment seeks forfeiture of at least $225 million in proceeds from the alleged theft of trade secrets from Kolon's competitors.

The charges were announced today by U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil H. MacBride; Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department's Criminal Division; and Jeffrey C. Mazanec, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Richmond Field Office.

"Kolon is accused of engaging in a massive industrial espionage campaign that allowed it to bring Heracron quickly to the market and compete directly with Kevlar," said U.S. Attorney MacBride. "This country's greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people. The genius of free enterprise is that companies compete on the excellence of their ideas, products, and services--not on theft. This indictment should send a strong message to companies located in the United States and around the world that industrial espionage is not a business strategy."

To finish reading this important and interesting news article by the FBI, please click here.

By: Lory

In an attempt to regain control over company secrets, Apple requested that certain documents be sealed, claiming the information should be considered "trade secrets."

The document in question is regarding a partial summary of damages calculations with product-specific unit sales and revenue information. Judge Koh originally denied the request to keep the Damage Motion sealed citing that, because Apple is seeking an additional $535 million in addition to the, already awarded, $1.05 billion, the documents need to be revealed.

"As Apple appears to have realized in introducing that exhibit, it cannot both use its financial data to seek multi-billion dollar damages and insist on keeping it secret," Judge Koh wrote in her decision.

To continue reading this interesting article from Pad Gadget, please click here.

By: Tricia Duryee

Following the departure of several high-level employees, Zynga is striking back by filing a lawsuit against one of its former general managers, alleging "the wholesale theft of some of its most sensitive and commercially valuable data."

Back in August, Patmore, Zynga's general manager of CityVille, left the company to work at a rival social games maker in San Francisco. Patmore had joined Zynga in June 2011, and served as CityVille's general manager before jumping to Kixeye to be its VP of Product. Kixeye is a much smaller Facebook games developer that has been extremely brazen about recruiting talent away from Zynga.

Zynga says Patmore took files that are critically important to the game maker's business, including revenue projections, monetization plans, more than 10 unreleased game design documents, employee compensation details, strategic road maps, and his entire email box, containing 14 months of confidential communications.

Zynga will return to court on Tuesday, where it will ask the judge to address its other requests, including the return of the data, access to Patmore's Dropbox account, and other details.

To read the complete article from All Things D, please click here.

By: Brad Dorfman

The maker of the Nabi tablet computer for children sued Toys R Us Inc on Monday, saying the world's largest toy retailer stole trade secrets in preparing to introduce the rival Tabeo tablet this month.

The introduction of Tabeo heated up the market for tablets designed specifically for children, which also includes players like LeapFrog Enterprises Inc's LeapPad.

Fuhu accused Toys R Us of fraud, breach of contract, unfair competition and trade secret misappropriation. Fuhu also said that Toys R Us copied Nabi's butterfly-shaped bumper,which is used to help protect the tablet, for Tabeo.

To continue reading this interesting article by Reuters, please click here.

By: JENNIFER PELTZ

When a former Goldman Sachs computer programmer was freed from prison after getting his software-theft conviction overturned, he declared that "justice occasionally works."

Six months later, Sergey Aleynikov faced new charges Thursday over the same allegations: that he copied valuable, secret computer code from the financial powerhouse as he was leaving for a new job.

This time, he's being charged under state laws, instead of the federal laws involved in his now-reversed conviction.

The Manhattan district attorney's office, which is bringing the new case, called it an appropriate use of state laws to pursue an employee who exploited his access to sensitive information. Aleynikov's lawyer called the new prosecution a vindictive, legally questionable effort to take a second swipe at a man who already served time for a crime judges later said he didn't commit.

To finish reading this interesting news article from The Huffington Post, please click here.