Recent Decisions and Developments
April 8, 2013
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United States District Court for the District of Colorado
Colorado District Court Holds that Nightclub Owner's MySpace Profile May Constitute a Trade Secret
March 5, 2013
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United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Fifth Circuit Affirms Preliminary Injunction for Misappropriation of Dietary Supplement Research Compilation
March 4, 2013
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United States District Court for the Southern District of California
Court dismisses Tablet Maker Fraud Claims, Trade Secret Missapropriation Claims Remain
Commentary
By Robert A. Levine, '13
In a recently filed case, the popular clothing brand J. Crew Group, Inc, accused an ex-designer of stealing confidential information his new job at Bonobos, a competing clothing line. J. Crew claims its “confidential and proprietary information [includes] product designs, . . . productions schedules, manufacturing resources, and other information concerning [its] business operations,” such as budgets and marketing strategies. At first glance, this would appear to be a typical case of an employee leaving one company for its competitor (and taking the former’s trade secrets with it). Indeed, Law360’s headline for the case reads, “...
By Robert A. Levine, '13
When one network attempts to rip-off another network’s program, the aggrieved party may turn to its legal counsel to see if there are any claims against the perceived “copycat” show and its producers. While a written expression of ideas such as scripts are copyrightable intellectual property, see 17 U.S.C. § 101 (2010), some entertainment industry executives and lawyers argue there is a “gap” in protection in regards to “entertainment formats,” and specifically in the context of reality television programming. See generally Edwin Komen, Are Formats the Floormats Of Copyright?, Law360 (Jul. 10, 2012),...
By Lillian Tan ’12
Trade secret protection, normally left to the jurisdiction of states, has become a growing concern of the federal government. Over the last several months, the federal government’s prosecution of trade secrets theft under the Economic Espionage Act (“EEA) (18 U.S.C. §1831 et. seq.) spiked, and it has found other means of enforcement such as Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) (18 U.S.C. §1030 et seq.) and even Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. §1337(a)(1)(A)).
In the last three years alone, U.S. Attorneys have used the EEA in a number of trade secrets theft cases. Two cases, United States v. Yang and United...