Kilpatrick partners Brian Axelrad, Jeff Hechtman, and Brenda Holmes recently presented to clients at the Kilpatrick Intellectual Property Seminar on the topic of “Corporate Perspectives on Intellectual Property.” They...more
Life Sciences is an area ripe for trade secrets misappropriation litigation. In recent news, Merz Pharmaceuticals, LLC filed a lawsuit under the North Carolina Uniform Trade Secrets Act alleging that its former director of...more
Customer relationships are a key asset for companies in the financial advising and wealth management industry. In California, however, the law is making it increasingly difficult to stop departing employees from soliciting...more
Whether a customer list is, in fact, a trade secret depends on a two-step analysis to be applied on a case-by-case basis. The first step relates to efforts to keep the list secret. If so, the second step is a four-factor...more
A federal district court in Michigan granted a preliminary injunction in favor of tax preparation franchisor, Liberty Tax Service (JTH Tax, Inc. v. Magnotte, E.D. Mich., ¶16,575), finding it was likely to succeed on its...more
Social media contact lists have become an increasingly important part of a business’s customer lists. While courts are still grappling with who legally “owns” the data that the employee acquired on the employer’s dime—such...more
Businesses invest significant time and resources toward creating and maintaining customer lists. While customer lists were historically relatively simple and straight-forward documents listing customer names and contacts,...more
As we’ve observed over the years, when addressing trade secrets claims based on customer lists, courts have landed all over the place. These cases involve difficult questions such as when an employee develops relationships on...more
Social media today connects people more than ever. It can be a means to bring together long-lost friends, new acquaintances, and love interests, or the public with celebrities, sports teams, new products, and companies—to...more
For many companies, customer information ranks among its most important assets. Yet these days, employees often keep this sensitive customer information in electronic locations that are not readily accessible to or controlled...more
A lawyer’s favorite phrase might be “it depends.” And when an employer asks whether its customer lists qualify as a trade secret, “it depends” is often the answer. But even if it’s difficult to definitively state whether...more
As social media becomes an important part of many companies’ sales and branding strategies, issues relating to companies’ ability to protect their investments in such strategies are emerging. Indeed, this blog has previously...more
Dispute is heating up over IRS’s attempts to get personal information about users of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies. Last November, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) filed a petition in the United States...more
A recent case in the Southern District of Florida serves as a reminder that even trade secrets may be subject to production to opposing counsel. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman recently ordered a defendant “swingers’” club...more
Sports Authority, Inc. (“Sports Authority”) advertisements have been everywhere lately –‘everything must go!’ But does this include their customers’ personal information, too? Because Sports Authority has filed for Chapter 11...more
Carrie, A couple of weeks ago, you wrote me about an employee who will be engaging in a six-month temporary assignment around Europe to scope market opportunities. The employee was Abbie Absent-Minded. Well, we hit a...more
You know how important data is to your business and you have been hearing about data breaches for more than a decade, but where do you find a simple, straightforward summary of how to protect your company? That is a question...more
Why another law firm newsletter? Over ten years ago, Will Stern answered that question in the first Editor’s Note of the first Financial Services Report. Some things have changed since then—we no longer print and mail paper...more
Just days before Halloween, the Illinois Appellate Court sent a scary message to employers: We will not enforce or judicially modify your overly broad restrictive covenants! In AssuredPartners, Inc. v. Schmitt, No. 13 CH...more
Personal data is a valuable corporate asset. At times, the personal information collected from customers (such as email address, mailing address, phone number, etc.) can be a company’s most valuable asset. Unfortunately,...more
Learn how your company can prepare to act quickly and strategically to protect important relationships, information and trade secrets at the time that a key employee leaves. This webinar will review the latest developments in...more
Five social media law issues to discuss with your clients - The explosive growth of social media has clients facing legal questions that didn’t even exist a few short years ago. Helping your clients navigate this...more
“This has been a trend for a long time; the days of lifetime employment are long since over.” — Marc Andreeson Anticipating that employees do not always stay with an employer for the duration of their careers,...more
Customer information has become an increasingly valuable business asset. And, the volume and detail of other available information about consumers has increased along with it, well beyond mere customer names and addresses to...more
Following a significant fine against the parties to an asset acquisition for illegally transferring customer information, the Bavarian Data Protection Supervisory Authority (Bavarian DPA) announced on August, 20, 2015 that it...more