It is a long standing principle in trade secret law that “[a] trade secret can exist in a combination of characteristics and components, each of which, by itself, is in the public domain, but the unified process, design and operation … [makes it] a protectable secret.” Imperial Chem. Indus. v. Nat’l Distillers & Chem. Corp., 342 F.2d 737, 742 (2d Cir. 1965). In a recent decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth…

In an indictment unsealed last week, the U.S. Department of Justice charged two companies – one based in China and the other in Taiwan – as well as three individuals, with trade secret theft, conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, economic espionage, and other related crimes. These charges are the latest in a recent string of similar prosecutions, as U.S. officials have sought to combat the threat of Chinese economic espionage against American technology companies,…

Last week, airplane manufacturer Bombardier filed a complaint against Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation and former Bombardier employees in the Western District of Washington alleging violations of the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act and the Washington Uniform Trade Secrets Act, tortious interference, and breach of contract. Bombardier claims as trade secrets its designs, testing, and regulatory “certification approach” for obtaining approval from aviation safety agencies, as well as the underlying regulations themselves, which it claims are identified “only…

Noncompete agreements are nothing new, in fact, 18% of all U.S. workers are subject to noncompetes while an estimated 70% of senior executives and 43% of engineers are bound by noncompetes. Employers frequently use noncompetes—which may restrict former employees from working for or starting competing businesses for a set period of time—to protect a company’s goodwill and trade secret information and as an effective tool for retaining talented employees from making a move to a…

On September 14, 2018, a former scientist at GlaxoSmithKline (“GSK”) pled guilty to conspiring to steal trade secrets from his former employer. Dr. Tao Li was accused of stealing confidential information about anti-cancer drugs from a GSK facility in Upper Merion, Pennsylvania after conspiring with other GSK employees who provided information to him via email, in person, and on a thumb drive. Dr. Li had established a rival company in Nanjing, China with financial backing from…

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…

In May 2018, U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest of the Southern District of New York granted PepsiCo, Inc.’s (“Pepsi”) summary judgment motion against ScentSational Technologies, LLC (“ScentSational”). ScentSational, a company that develops methods of delivering scents in food and beverage packaging to alter a consumer’s taste perception, alleged that Pepsi learned its trade secrets in the course of their business relationship that it included in a patent application that caused Coca-Cola (“Coke”) to terminate…