On April 23, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) voted 3-2 to issue its final rule (“Final Rule”) banning employers from imposing noncompete clauses on their workers, approving the final rule in a special Open Commission Meeting.
As we previously reported here in March 2020, the implementation of remote work policies heightens the risk of misappropriation of trade secrets in remote work environments and could require businesses to take additional steps to ensure the security of their
AI tools such as Chat GPT and Otter are becoming common programs that employees use to help streamline business tasks. Otter, for example, is an AI Meeting Assistant that automatically transcribes and summarizes meetings in real time, records audio, captures
California has passed two new items of legislation, Senate Bill 699 and Assembly Bill 1076, which will further regulate and restrict the enforcement of employment non-compete agreements in California, and expand the scope of remedies for those affected by them. These
On May 25, 2023, the Texas Legislature enacted the biggest structural change to the Texas court system in recent memory. House Bill 19 (“HB 19”)—signed by Governor Greg Abbott in June—creates a new “Business Court” system for the Lone
Courts and state legislatures continue to take aim at post-employment non-competes. In a companion blog, we recently detailed the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed rule banning post-employment non-competes. However, for years (and even under the FTC’s overreaching proposed rule), non-competes in
On January 5, 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced a broad proposed rule that would ban employers from imposing noncompete clauses on their workers. The FTC press release announcing the proposed rule states that noncompete clauses—which apply to about
The recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, Caudill Seed & Warehouse Co. v. Jarrow Formulas, Inc., illustrates the flexible approach taken by courts when considering the calculation of compensatory damages in trade secrets cases. No. 21-5345,
The tension between encouraging free and fair competition and protecting competitive advantages derived from hard work and ingenuity is at the very heart of trade secrets law. Among other things, this tension manifests itself in the gray areas endemic to
Should a defendant found liable for stealing trade secrets have to fork over all of the research and development costs it theoretically avoided by misappropriating the secrets? Yes, according to the “avoided costs” theory of unjust enrichment that is gaining