On May 31, 2023, a Harris County Texas District Court jury found a telecom company acted in bad faith by filing a $23 million trade secret misappropriation lawsuit against a rival where the underlying technology was found to...more
Recently, Seyfarth Partner Jesse Coleman had the opportunity to present an American Intellectual Property Law Association (“AIPLA”) webinar titled “Working with Experts and Recent Developments in Trade Secrets Damages.”...more
On June 17, 2022, the Texas Supreme Court affirmed a lower appellate court’s decision, (which we previously wrote about here), which nixed the plaintiff’s $740 million trade secret win at trial and required the plaintiff to...more
After a months-long delay due to an outbreak of COVID-19 during the first trial, a federal jury in Texas awarded a $152 million verdict—including $120 million in punitive damages—in a trade secret misappropriation case...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In a case of first impression, the Ninth Circuit held that the continued use doctrine is available under the DTSA, and the court permitted a plaintiff to raise a DTSA claim for misappropriation of trade...more
Real estate startup HouseCanary made headlines when it secured a $700 million judgment against Title Source, Inc., now known as Amrock, in a trade secrets misappropriation case. In short, HouseCanary claimed that Amrock...more
The “return to normal” in courts across the country has brought with it a flurry of trade secrets decisions that address some interesting and instructive issues, both procedurally and substantively....more
In a case following a familiar trade-secret set of facts, on April 28, 2020, the Texas First District Court of Appeals in Houston reversed the trial court’s grant of a motion to dismiss under the Texas Citizens Participation...more
Effective on September 1, 2019, the 86th Texas Legislature’s amendments to the Texas Citizen’s Participation Act, Texas Civil Practices and Remedies Code Chapter 27 (“TCPA”) essentially removed the vast majority trade secret...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Knowledge that a competitor or former employee is misappropriating trade secrets is difficult to come by. At the same time, however, once a company has notice that misappropriation may be occurring, the...more
12/4/2019
/ Appeals ,
Children's Toys ,
Competition ,
Confidential Information ,
Counterclaims ,
Former Employee ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Mattel ,
MGA Entertainment ,
Misappropriation ,
Misrepresentation ,
Preservation of Rights ,
Retail Market ,
State and Local Government ,
Statute of Limitations ,
Time-Barred Claims ,
Trade Secrets ,
Uniform Trade Secrets Acts
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana recently held that, under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1836, et seq., information included in a patent application remains an actionable...more
9/26/2019
/ Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) ,
Goods or Services ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Misappropriation ,
Motion for Summary Judgment ,
Patent Applications ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patents ,
Popular ,
Public Records ,
Reverse Engineering ,
Trade Secrets ,
Use in Commerce
On August 23, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued its long-awaited opinion in Klocke v. Watson, 17-11320, 2019 WL 3977545, at *1 (5th Cir. Aug. 23, 2019), holding that the Texas Citizens...more
9/5/2019
/ Anti-SLAPP ,
Attorney's Fees ,
Defamation ,
Diversity ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Misappropriation ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Sanctions ,
Statutory Interpretation ,
Title IX ,
Trade Secrets
On November 13, 2018, the United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, affirmed the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas’s denial of prevailing party attorneys’ fees in a matter of first impression...more
The Texas Court of Appeals, Third District, issued an opinion in Tejas Vending, LP, et al. v. Tejas Promotions, LLC further delineating the applicability of Texas’s anti-SLAPP statute, the Texas Citizens Participation Act...more
7/12/2018
/ Anti-SLAPP ,
Appeals ,
Breach of Contract ,
Civil Conspiracy ,
Confidential Information ,
Declaratory Relief ,
Gaming ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Misappropriation ,
Non-Disclosure Agreement ,
State and Local Government ,
Trade Secrets
Late last week, the Texas Supreme Court denied a petition for mandamus in which the petitioner sought an order compelling a plaintiff to identify the specific trade secrets it contends were misappropriated, bucking what...more
On May 19, 2017, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law several amendments to the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act (“TUTSA”), located in Chapter 134A of the Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code. The amendments go into...more
The San Antonio Court of Appeals recently held that an applicant for a temporary injunction in a trade-secret-misappropriation case under the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act is not required to show the defendant is actually...more
Applying new Texas Supreme Court precedent, a Texas Court of Appeals recently held that a six-year-old cease-and-desist letter alleging trade-secret misappropriation did not constitute proof of knowledge for purposes of the...more
A Texas Court of Appeals held on August 22, 2016, that a former employer was entitled to $2.8 million in attorney’s fees against a former employee who used the employer’s information to compete against it. The Court reached...more
9/2/2016
/ Appeals ,
Attorney's Fees ,
Breach of Contract ,
Confidential Information ,
Damages ,
Employment Contract ,
Former Employee ,
Jury Trial ,
Misappropriation ,
Permanent Injunctions ,
Remedies ,
Trade Secrets ,
Unfair Competition
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
6/1/2016
/ Breach of Contract ,
Confidential Information ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Declaratory Judgments ,
Due Process ,
Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine ,
Misappropriation ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Registered Representatives ,
Trade Secrets ,
TRO ,
TX Supreme Court ,
Writ of Mandamus
On January 13, before the Texas Supreme Court, two major oil-and-gas-services companies disputed whether Texas’s new trade secret laws require a trial court to exclude a party’s corporate representative from a hearing at...more