The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted a writ of mandamus ordering the transfer of a case, finding that the district court’s denial of the motion to transfer “was so patently erroneous” that the extreme measure...more
Federal Circuit Denies En Banc Rehearing in Mentor Graphics v. EVE-USA - In Mentor Graphics Corp. v. Eve-USA, Inc., Appeal Nos. 2015-1470, 2015-1554, 2015-1556, the Federal Circuit denied Synopsys’ and EVE’s petition for...more
In Allied v. OSMI, the Circuit affirms dismissal of a declaratory judgment action even though Allied’s Mexican distributors had been sued in Mexico on a corresponding Mexican patent. In a first Waymo v. Uber case, the panel...more
In trade secret cases, it is often the case that a defendant company and employee accused of trade secret misappropriation enter into a joint defense agreement. Often under such JDAs, facts, strategies and documents are...more
Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016: An Overview - Why it matters: The Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) was signed into law on May 11, 2016 and gives trade secret owners a federal cause of action for injunctive...more
Following oral arguments (which we reported on in February), on May 20, 2016, the Texas Supreme Court issued its first opinion involving the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act, which was enacted in 2013. In December...more
Recently, the Texas Supreme Court provided its first opinion interpreting the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act in a case involving an issue that often causes discomfort to lawyers on both sides of the “v” in trade secret...more
In a clash between two major oil companies, the Texas Supreme Court ruled May 20, 2016 that the recently enacted Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act (“TUTSA”) allows the trial court discretion to exclude a company representative...more
The Texas Supreme Court ruled last week that a party accused of stealing trade secrets does not have an absolute right to be present in the courtroom for the entirety of a preliminary injunction hearing when the trade secrets...more
In December 2014, Schlumberger subsidiary M-I LLC (d/b/a M-I SWACO) filed a writ of mandamus with the Texas Supreme Court over a trade secrets case decided in Harris County District Court. In its writ, M-I SWACO alleged that...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit concluded that the district court’s denial of defendant Sinovel’s motion to quash service of process is not an appealable order under the collateral order doctrine. The Court...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated an order modifying a protective order to allow the use of confidential discovery material in foreign litigation, explaining that courts facing such questions must...more