In an aggressive first move, Plaintiffs – two former employees accused of trade secret misappropriation – filed a preemptive suit for declaratory relief and unfair business practices against their former employer, Defendant Chandler Holding’s, Inc., in California Superior Court. Plaintiffs contend that shortly after their resignations from Chandler Holdings, Inc., they received letters from Defendant’s counsel accusing them of “numerous wrongful, illegal, fraudulent and contract breaching actions.” The letters allege that Plaintiffs are wrongfully competing…

StubHub, an online ticket exchange company, successfully defeated a suit brought by start-up company Calendar Research LLC. Calendar had alleged that three of its former employees used proprietary data in developing applications for StubHub. In its suit, Calendar Research alleged that the former employees downloaded proprietary information that belonged to the startup that they didn’t return and maintained access to Calendar Research’s source code. A California federal judge found that Calendar Research failed to show that…

On June 14, 2018, six former and current Fitbit employees were indicted in the Northern District of California for alleged federal trade secrets offenses. The individuals are accused of either stealing market research regarding fitness tracker opportunities from Jawbone, or stealing internal studies – including a comparison study of consumer behavior in which consumers wore both Jawbone and Fitbit devices. The employees are charged with felony Possession of Stolen Trade Secrets (18 USC §1832(a)(3)), for…

On November 2, 2017, Foltz Welding LTD filed a motion for preliminary injunction against its former employee and operations manager in the United Stated District Court Southern District of Illinois. The company filed a nine-count complaint against its former employee and requested injunctive relief and damages. Foltz Welding claimed that the former employee may have trade secrets on his personal computers or iCloud storage that could be given to his new employer. On February 12,…

On January 18, 2018, a former software developer for IBM Corp. was sentenced to five years in prison after he had pleaded guilty of theft of a trade secret and economic espionage.  As part of his work for IBM, Xu Jiaquiang had access to proprietary source code which facilitates faster computer performance by coordinating work among multiple servers.  Despite IBM’s precautions in place to protect the secrecy of the code, including a firewall and express…