Unfair Competition and Trade Secret Disputes

The rise in employee mobility, computer use, portable thumb drives and raiding of competitor talent has made it more difficult than ever to safeguard confidential information. The following are common scenarios:

• Your competitor raids your top talent.
• Before departing a company, an employee downloads confidential customer-related data, technical specifications and other valuable documents onto a portable thumb drive.
• Key executives working in sensitive areas depart to another company and work in a similar area where they will inevitably draw upon the sensitive confidential information they worked on while in your employment.
• A new employee starts work and presents you with classified data from his previous employer.

We represent defendants and plaintiffs in unfair competition claims. We have successfully handled trade secret claims involving manufacturing processes, biological life, software, customer lists, equipment design, and financial transactions. We are skilled in matters involving confidential information, noncompete agreements, nonsolicitation agreement, the "inevitable disclosure" doctrine, unjust enrichment and other business torts involving unfair competition.

We help clients formulate and implement practical controls to ensure that incoming and outgoing employees abide by their post-employment obligations. We also work with corporations on trade secret matters associated with mergers and acquisitions, financings, outsourcing transactions and technology licensing.

Data Protection and Safeguarding Trade Secrets

We have devised innovative trade secret protection programs. We draw upon our excellence in human resources, workplace privacy, modern workplace technology and forensics to achieve excellent results for our clients. We keep our clients abreast of current best practices for safeguarding confidential information while respecting employee rights.

Noncompetition and Nonsolicitation Issues

We have advised departing employees on their noncompete and nonsolicitation obligations and represented them against claims of violations. And we also write noncompete and nonsolicitation enforcement letters on behalf of companies.

Litigating

We represent plaintiffs and defendants, as well as employees and employers in cases involving claims of breach of duty of loyalty, unfair competition, theft of trade secrets, unjust enrichment theft of confidential information, conversion or other business torts in court, mediation or in arbitration. We have successfully defended companies in the publishing, biotechnology, banking and computer software fields.