Articles Posted in Trade Secrets

In this patent and trade-secret dispute between Safe Haven Wildlife Removal and Property Management Experts and Meridian Wildlife Services, the defendant tried to raise the stakes by inserting a number of business torts (including breach of fiduciary duty, tortious interference with contract and business expectancies, and business conspiracy) but the court dismissed these claims as time-barred and ordered that the case proceed only on the patent and trade-secret claims.

Those of you preparing for the Great Backyard Bird Count (which starts tomorrow!) and who spend much of your leisure time doing everything in your power to attract birds to your property may be surprised to hear that “bird removal” is big business. The plaintiff in this case, Safe Haven, “specializes in the safe, effective, and humane bird and wildlife removal solutions for facilities.” (See para. 19 of its Amended Complaint). Meridian, the defendant, describes itself as “an innovator and industry leader in [bird removal and wildlife management] services with extensive experience assisting commercial clients throughout the United States with interior bird removal, exterior bird population reduction, wildlife relocation, nest removal and full facility inspection services.” (See para. 9 of Meridian’s Answer). I guess it’s safe to assume these companies won’t be participating in the popular annual birding event.

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The Virginia Uniform Trade Secrets Act (“VUTSA”) contains a section stating that “this chapter displaces conflicting tort, restitutionary, and other law of this Commonwealth providing civil remedies for misappropriation of a trade secret.” (See Va. Code § 59.1-341). Known as the preemption provision, it is designed to prevent inconsistent theories of relief for the same underlying harm by eliminating alternative theories of common law recovery premised on misappropriation of trade secrets. (See Smithfield Ham & Products Co., Inc. v. Portion Pac, Inc., 905 F.Supp. 346, 348 (E.D. Va. 1995)). The General Assembly has decided that if you’re going to file a lawsuit for a tort based on the unlawful taking or use of a trade secret, your sole remedy should lie in VUTSA. Any common-law claim premised entirely on a claim for misappropriation of a trade secret will be deemed preempted by the statute. To avoid preemption, a plaintiff must be able to demonstrate that the distinct theories of relief sought are supported by facts unrelated to the alleged misappropriation of the trade secret. (See Combined Ins. Co. of Am. v. Wiest, 578 F. Supp. 2d 822, 833 (W.D. Va. 2008)).

If a plaintiff sues a defendant for misappropriation of trade secrets under VUTSA but also for conversion, unjust enrichment, and tortious interference, one might suppose that the three common-law torts would be preempted and that a motion to dismiss would be in order. As noted by a recent decision in the case of Signature Flight Support, LLC v. Catherine Carroll, however, the preemption issue often cannot be decided at the outset of a case and must wait for trial to be resolved. This is primarily because the determination of whether a particular piece of confidential commercial information qualifies as a “trade secret” under VUTSA is generally a question of fact to be determined at trial. If the plaintiff can’t prove the existence of trade secrets, then preemption won’t apply and the tort claims would become viable.

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According to the allegations of a complaint filed by Amy H. Tang, a professor of microbiology and molecular cell biology, against the Eastern Virginia Medical School (“EVMS”), EVMS misappropriated her trade secrets and discriminated against her due to her Chinese ethnicity. She sued the school for violations of both the Defend Trade Secrets Act and the Virginia Uniform Trade Secrets Act, plus a host of other claims. EVMS was successful in getting some of the claims dismissed, but the court ruled that Professor Tang had sufficiently alleged all the requisite elements of a trade secrets case to survive the school’s motion to dismiss.

Tang’s allegations were essentially as follows. EVMS employs Tang as a Professor of Cancer Biology. She had developed certain treatments related to the exploitation and use of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid for anti-NFkB, anti-inflammatory, and antiseptic treatments, which she disclosed to EVMS in an invention disclosure. Tang claimed these treatments were entitled to trade secret protection considering she had taken measures to keep the information secret (including securing all data electronically and requiring staff to leave data locked within the lab facilities and password-protected computer systems) and that the information had independent economic value.

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Nobody likes to get sued. It can be an expensive and soul-draining proposition, even if you win. Under the so-called “American Rule,” litigants are responsible for paying their own legal fees, regardless of which party wins the case. Obviously, this system engenders some abuse, as crafty, litigious plaintiffs can file frivolous lawsuits knowing that–at the very least–they will cause the defendant to incur large sums of attorneys’ fees. As a defendant in American litigation, a victory at trial merely means you don’t have to pay the plaintiff any money. But you do you have to pay your own attorneys for their time and effort. So even a “win” is often viewed as a net loss in financial terms. One common way to turn the tables on plaintiffs is to file a counterclaim. Assuming the counterclaim itself isn’t completely groundless, it can put the parties on equal footing: if both parties have claims against the other, then both parties have something to lose beyond mere legal fees. Now, even the plaintiff can be liable for a money judgment.

If you file a counterclaim, however, you better mean it. The court may not allow you to withdraw it later if you decide your claims should have been brought as a separate action in a different jurisdiction. If the case has progressed to the point where trial is imminent, you may be forced to litigate the claim or lose it forever.

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Suppose your employer asks you to create a Google account for the company. So you do. You set up everything yourself: Google Drive, Google+, Gmail–the works. You even set the password to your dog’s name. All of Google’s terms and conditions are accepted by you personally when creating the account. You proceed to use the account on behalf of the company, using Google Drive to store hundreds of company documents. Then you leave your job. Is the Google account yours? You created it, so are you free to make whatever use of the account you wish? Can you delete it?

Marcelo Cuellar thought so, but he was wrong. According to papers filed in Estes Forwarding Worldwide v. Cuellar in the Eastern District of Virginia, here are the facts. Cuellar joined Estes Forwarding Worldwide (“EFW”)–a transportation logistics company–in 2010. EFW has developed trade secrets relating to the best transportation solutions for various types of shipments, including information about type of freight, freight dimensions, routing decisions, vendor selection, and so on. It keeps this information in spreadsheets and other electronic documents.

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Don’t think you can get out of your non-compete agreement just because you’re a contractor and not an employee. While it’s true that independent contractors, unlike regular employees, may not owe a fiduciary duty of loyalty to the party that hired them (hence their independence), a business may legitimately require its consultants and contractors to enter into binding non-compete and non-solicitation agreements that will restrict their right to compete with the business for a reasonable length of time after their contracts end.

A few weeks ago in Newport News, Judge Raymond A. Jackson allowed a case brought by tax-preparation firm Tax International against two of its former independent contractors to go forward, denying the defendants’ motions to dismiss. The litigation involved allegations not only that the defendants had violated their non-compete agreements but also that they committed trade secret misappropriation, tortious interference with business expectancy, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, false designation of origin, and unfair competition. Judge Jackson allowed all claims to go forward, finding the allegations plausible on their face.

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When an employee has signed an enforceable non-competition and non-solicitation agreement, he will be prohibited from soliciting the employer’s customers for a certain length of time after the employment relationship ends. In the absence of an express non-competition clause, a former employee is generally free to compete with his former employer, even if that means contacting the former employer’s customers and offering lower prices. Without the benefit of contractual noncompetes and the remedies they provide, employers who pursue their former employees in court often argue that the employees violated their post-employment fiduciary obligations by making inappropriate use of the employer’s customer list and/or pricing data. In a recent opinion authored by Judge Liam O’Grady of the Eastern District of Virginia, the court held that customer lists aren’t automatically entitled to trade-secret or other “confidentiality” status, and that whether former employees can use the data depends on the steps taken by the employer to keep it confidential.

In Contract Associates, Inc. v. Atalay, Contract Associates, Inc. (“CAI”) sued its former employees, Senem Atalay and Michael Spade, claiming that they breached their fiduciary duties and misappropriated trade secrets when they left to form their own competing company. Neither employee had a written employment agreement. Within hours of tendering their resignations, they called three of CAI’s major clients to announce their resignations and the formation of their new, competing company. Shortly thereafter, virtually all of CAI’s major clients terminated their at-will agreements with CAI and moved their business to the defendants’ new company, costing CAI “nearly its entire revenue stream.” CAI sued for breach of fiduciary duty, misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference with existing and prospective contracts, and statutory business conspiracy.
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“I made a copy of the client list because they are my clients; I won the business for my company” is a refrain I hear often in consulting with former employees. We’re sorry to have to tell you that this commonly held belief is not accurate. Those clients and customers you may have generated as an employee are not “yours” to take with you. They belong to the company. Making a copy of such a list by printing it, downloading a file, copying it onto a flash drive, or emailing the list to yourself can get you into a lot of trouble because such actions violate Virginia common law as well as certain Virginia statutes. This is true whether or not employees are subject to a noncompete or nonsolicitation agreement. Here are several laws a former or soon-to-be former employee may be violating by copying or taking a former employer’s client or customer list:

If you copy, download, or upload the company’s client and/or customer lists, you may be committing the business tort (the legal term for a civil “wrong”) of conversion. Conversion is the wrongful exercise over another’s property, which deprives the owner of possession, or any act of dominion wrongfully exerted over the property in denial of or inconsistent with the owner’s rights. This means that if your former employer gets its IT people to inspect your computer or work phone and discovers you’ve taken a client list, you may be found liable for conversion of the employer’s property.
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AWP, Inc. is engaged in the business of traffic control solutions for road construction sites and emergency situations. AWP alleges that Shawn Watkins, a former employee, began his own traffic control business, Traffic Control Solutions, LLC (TCS) while still working at AWP, and that he misappropriated information he obtained from his position at AWP such as the identity, needs and issues of customers, pricing, and protocols and methodologies for traffic control. AWP deems this information protected trade secrets. Watkins also allegedly solicited four AWP employees to join him at TCS. AWP prepared to sue Watkins but settled prior to litigation, with Watkins agreeing to cease TCS operations, never work with an AWP competitor, and turn over all AWP property. Watkins also signed an affidavit stating that he was instrumental in creating TCS and had access to AWP’s trade secrets which he used without permission to underbid AWP on jobs and misappropriate AWP customers.

Instead, AWP sued its competitor Commonwealth Excavating, Inc. and its president, Ira Biggs. AWP claimed that Watkins approached Biggs and offered to sell AWP’s trade secrets and equipment for $45,000. Commonwealth allegedly offered to hire the four AWP employees who left for TCS, and it offered Watkins an $85,000 salary which Watkins refused for fear of violating his non-compete agreement. AWP believes that Watkins and Biggs plotted to have Commonwealth take over at least four of AWP’s customers, but the complaint does not state whether any of the customers accepted the offer. The complaint contains counts for common law conspiracy, statutory business conspiracy, misappropriation of trade secrets under the Virginia Uniform Trade Secrets Act (VUTSA), tortious interference with contract or business relationships and unjust enrichment. The defendants moved to dismiss.

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), a plaintiff must show more than a mere possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully. Rather, a plaintiff must demonstrate enough factual matter which, if accepted as true, states a plausible claim for relief. In ruling on a 12(b)(6) motion, a court will accept factual allegations as true and construe them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, but threadbare recitations of the elements of a cause of action are not sufficient and must be supported by sufficient facts.

The allegations in Autopartsource, LLC v. Bruton presented a fairly egregious case of stolen trade secrets. Due to a defendant’s failure to answer, those allegations were deemed true. As remedies, Autopartsource sought $1,131,801.55 in compensatory damages, $350,000 in punitive damages (the statutory maximum), $59,409.72 in attorneys’ fees and costs, a worldwide production injunction to last seven years, and a permanent injunction prohibiting the use of Autopartsource’s trade secrets. The court held an evidentiary hearing and ruled that while Autopartsource was entitled to an injunction and substantial damages, the scope of the requested injunction would be narrowed and the damages would be reduced.

Autopartsource designated employee Stephen Bruton to spearhead the company’s effort to develop business in China, where it sources its automobile parts. Bruton secretly developed his own competing business, BBH Source Group, and misappropriated Autopartsource’s trade secrets in doing so, using them to redirect prospective Autopartsource customers to BBH. After Autopartsource discovered Bruton’s actions and fired him, Bruton broke into an Autopartsource facility and deleted proprietary information from its database.

Autopartsource sued for violation of the Virginia Uniform Trade Secrets Act, tortious interference with business expectancy, and tortious interference with contract. The court found that Autopartsource had established liability on all three theories but that, under Virginia law, it could not recover damages under both VUTSA and its claim for tortious interference with business expectancy, as a party cannot receive damages for a common law tort if the underlying conduct involves an intentional misappropriation of a trade secret.

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