On September 23rd, 2019, the District Court for the District of Colorado awarded Atlas Biologicals, Inc. a total of $2 million against Defendant Thomas Kutrubes and his company, Peak Serum, Inc. Kutrubes, a part owner and former employee of Atlas, was found liable for trademark infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, and breach of fiduciary duty. Atlas holds trade secrets related to its bovine serum products, which are used for “cell culture and research in the…

We invite you to join Crowell & Moring’s second installment of our “Safeguarding Your Secrets in the Digital Age” webinar series: Reasonable Precautions to Protect Trade Secrets in The Digital Age, taking place on Tuesday, October 8th at 12:00 pm (EDT). During this webinar, Crowell & Moring Counsel Kate Growley and Julia Milewski will discuss the importance of taking reasonable precautions to protect trade secrets and best practices for doing so, including how to leverage common…

Christopher M. Warman allegedly has some valuable fudge recipes. In his second action to protect what he claims to be a valuable trade secret recipe for fudge, Warman’s complaint does not sugar-coat the parties’ sticky situation. He and his company have sued his ex-wife, Christine Falvo, and her company for a myriad of claims—trade secret misappropriation, trademark infringement, tortious interference with a contractual relationship, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, civil conspiracy and defamation. In this case, these…

Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana bill went into effect in 2016. In order to obtain a permit under that bill, potential medical marijuana grower/processors or dispensaries are required to provide detailed business information with their applications. However, under the state’s Right-to-Know Law (“RTKL”), applicants who can show that information about their security, storage and transportation are trade secrets can avail themselves of an exception to the RTKL and redact trade secrets from applications before they are released…

On Monday, August 12, a Delaware federal jury found that L’Oreal USA Inc. misappropriated Olaplex LLC’s trade secrets, breached a nondisclosure agreement, and willfully infringed on two of Olaplex’s patents related to a hair-coloring product. The patents in question related to a three-step system that protects hair from damage during bleaching. The jury deliberated for only half a day, granting Olaplex approximately $22.3 million in damages for L’Oreal’s willful infringement of its trade secrets, another…

In the First Circuit, restrictive covenants are governed predominately by statute (with the exception of Puerto Rico, which governs such agreements through common law). Within the last year, Maine, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire have amended their restrictive-covenant statutes to prohibit employers from requiring lower-wage earners to sign noncompete agreements. A recently proposed amendment to Massachusetts law, if passed, would render all noncompetition agreements void and unenforceable effective January 1, 2021. These efforts reflect increasing…

On August 26th, 2019, a federal indictment was unsealed, revealing that federal prosecutors have brought 33 criminal charges against a former Google engineer who worked on the company’s self-driving car project from its founding in 2009 through his resignation in January 2016. The indictment alleges that in the months before his departure, the former Google employee downloaded from a secure database multiple engineering, manufacturing and business files related to Google’s custom LiDAR and self-driving car technology. The…