Civil Remedies › Intellectual Property › Criminal Law

Federal Law Provides Enhanced Trade Secret Protection for Employers

Most people know that an employee who misuses his employer’s confidential information may be subject to damages in a civil lawsuit. Many states have enacted a Uniform Trade Secrets Act that allows an employer to pursue a...more

Focus On Intellectual Property (IP) - March 2012: Counterfeiter’s Beware – Canada Introduces New Law To Deal With Counterfeit And...

In This Issue: - Counterfeiter’s Beware – Canada Introduces New Law to Deal with Counterfeit and Pirated Products - A “Sign” of Things to Come – How Bill C-56 Will Change Canadian Trade-Mark Law - Excerpt...more

Canada Combats Counterfeiting with Bill C-56 (Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act)

On March 1, 2013, the Government of Canada introduced Bill C-56 in the House of Commons (The Combating Counterfeit Products Act). Bill C-56 introduces a series of amendments to the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act,...more

New U.S. Laws Criminalize Theft of Quantitative Trading and Investment Models and Other Trade Secrets and Dramatically Increase...

Introduction - The U.S. Congress recently passed two laws that raise the stakes dramatically for employees of financial services firms and anyone else who misappropriates trade secrets, including source code and other...more

Amendments to the Economic Espionage Act Broaden Trade Secret Protection

Protecting and enforcing trade secrets in the United States has historically been challenging. Recent amendments to the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (the "EEA"), which criminalizes theft of trade secrets, broaden the scope...more

German Federal Labor Court Dismisses 46 Million Euro Claim for Unlawful Solicitation of Employees

The solicitation of employees by competitors is a frequent problem for companies in Germany. Many companies actively pursue a so-called “war for talents” and sometimes unlawful means are used for the purpose of soliciting...more

D.C. Circuit: Restitution Order Must Involve Victim’s Loss, Not Defendant’s Gain

On November 9, 2012, in a unanimous opinion in United States v. Fair, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit found that the district court had abused its discretion in ordering restitution in the amount of $743,000 in...more

The DC Circuit Vacates A Restitution Order In A Criminal Copyright Case - Or, Making Money Off Pirated Adobe Software Doesn't...

Gregory Fair was an internet entrepreneur. Of sorts. Mr. Fair's Criminal Copyright Enterprise - He sold pirated copies of outdated Adobe software on Ebay. His customers could buy this outdated software, then, with...more

High Court May Rule on Computer Law Question

On July 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit became the first circuit to adopt the Ninth Circuit’s holding in U.S. v. Nosal, 676 F.3d 854 (9th Cir. 2012), that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act does not...more

Washington’s Increased Counterfeiting Prosecutions May Signal It’s Time to Reconsider Your Company’s IP Enforcement Strategy

Originally published in InsideCounsel.com on July 25, 2012. Introduction - Intellectual property crimes are on the rise because they are highly lucrative and historically there has been little criminal enforcement...more

The 9th Circuit: Employees Are Free to Steal from the Company Computers

Yesterday the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion holding that limiting an employee’s access to the company computers solely for business purposes, i.e. not stealing the data for a competitor, cannot be the...more

Holding Passwords Hostage - International Extortion Foiled

In a case recently filed by a Swiss company in federal court in Florida, the company alleged in its complaint that Jerome Westrick, its former computer programmer and minority shareholder, stole a company laptop, hacked into...more

After Last Week’s Oral Argument Will the 9th Circuit Reverse Its Decision that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Applies to...

On December 15, 2011, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard argument en banc in the case of U.S. v. Nosal, 642 F.3d 781 (9th Cir. 2011), reh’g en banc granted (Oct. 27, 2011). As expected, the oral argument focused on the...more

After Last Week's Oral Argument Will the 9th Circuit Reverse Its Decision that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Applies to...

On December 15, 2011, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard argument en banc in the case of U.S. v. Nosal, 642 F.3d 781 (9th Cir. 2011), reh’g en banc granted (Oct. 27, 2011). As expected, the oral argument focused on...more

Sex Crimes, Cell Phones and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

If anyone deserves a longer sentence, it is a sex offender who victimizes minors. But no one would ever have anticipated that a sex offender would receive extra prison time for using a basic cell phone in the furtherance of...more

• THE 6TH CIRCUIT AFFIRMS THE COMPUTER FRAUD AND ABUSE CONVICTION OF AN IT EMPLOYEE

• Last week the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the criminal conviction for the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) of an employee who stole confidential data from his employer’s computers. ...more

CAN YOU RELY ON YOUR CORPORATE COMPUTER POLICIES TO SUE EX-EMPLOYEES WHO STEAL COMPANY DATA?

Two recent district court opinions add to the caselaw providing judicial guidance on how employers might update their corporate computer policies to be able to sue ex-employees for stealing company data based on the Computer...more

Can Breaching a Contract Be Computer Fraud?

Court in ticket resale case says ‘yes,’ if it results in unauthorized access, an essential element of the crime. The U.S. Department of Justice has brought a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) prosecution in New...more

Disgruntled Employee Lacked Criminal Intent to Be Sued for a Civil Violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act While the federal...

While the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) permits seven causes of action to be brought by individuals or companies who have been victims of violations of the statute, practitioners lose sight of the...more

Win for Apple on Its iPhone Operating System: Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Claim Dismissed

A critical element in proving either a civil or criminal violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”), the federal computer crime statute, is that the defendant act with criminal intent as opposed to...more

Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Count Dismissed Against Goldman Sachs Computer Programmer Charged with Stealing Source Code

A New York federal Judge dismissed the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) count charging Sergey Aleynikov, a former computer programmer for Goldman Sachs & Co., with stealing the computer source code used in...more

China's Supreme People's Court Publishes White Paper on Intellectual Property Protection by Chinese Courts

On April 20, 2010, China’s Supreme People’s Court published its first Intellectual Property Protection by Chinese Courts in 2009 White Paper (“White Paper”). The White Paper provides a review of Intellectual Property Rights...more

Savage v. Council on American-Islamic Relations, Inc., et al.

Reply in Support of Defendants' Motion For Reconsideration of the Denial of an Award of Attorneys' Fees and Costs

In December of 2007, radio talk show host Michael Savage filed suit in federal district court against the Council on American-Islamic Relations, alleging copyright infringement and a violation of federal racketeering laws for...more

Intellectual Property Quarterly Newsletter - Winter 2008

IN THIS ISSUE: Bidding for a Copyright Injunction After eBay, pg. 2 -------------------------- New Law Expected to Add Teeth to Current Counterfeiting Laws, pg. 3 -------------------------- Intervening Rights:...more

New Law Expected to Add Teeth to Current Counterfeiting Laws

Recognizing that the increase in willful violations of U.S. counterfeiting laws pose a serious threat to the economy, both chambers of Congress finally passed the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual...more