Trade Secrets

Our Trade Secrets Practice Group provides clients with a deep bench of experienced lawyers from practice groups across the Firm. In trade secrets matters, lawyers from our internationally recognized Criminal Defense & Investigations, Executive Compensation, Intellectual Property & Technology Litigation, Intellectual Property & Technology Transactions and Employment Law Practices collaborate to provide tailored guidance directly responsive to client needs. S&C also prides itself on taking a commercial approach to matters to provide practice advice to our clients. We understand the nuances frequently involved in business and trade secret matters and craft creative solutions to meet our clients’ needs. We approach trade secrets work as trusted advisors to our clients, providing guidance on risk management and how to strengthen existing protections, implement new protections and litigate (both offensive and defensive) when those protections are disputed.

Our lawyers regularly advise clients on:

Transactions involving trade secrets and other complex technology and intellectual property issues, including in mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, licenses, joint ventures, and collaborations. We counsel clients across a wide range of industries where trade secrets are important to the business, including in the software, technology, artificial intelligence, and manufacturing fields.
Offensive and defensive litigation alleging the misappropriation of trade secrets, including when competitors hire each other’s employees who possess sensitive information. S&C excels at representing clients in complex litigation involving employer/employee dynamics, employment and consulting agreements, and alleged violations of restrictive covenants. We also leverage our leading investigations lawyers to quickly and discreetly investigate the allegations underlying such litigation.
Regulatory, criminal and workplace investigations stemming from trade secrets, confidential supervisory information (“CSI”) and other corporate espionage considerations.
Effective ways to protect valuable trade secrets and other proprietary information, including designing policies and procedures and with respect to recent rules that limit the availability of restrictive covenants such as non-competes.

Experience

Given the sensitive nature of much of our trade secrets work for clients, many of our most significant matters remain confidential. Some of our public representations in this area include:

Advanced Comfort Technologies, Inc.—better known as Intellibed—in obtaining the dismissal of all claims in a suit filed against it in Utah by Purple Innovations, Inc. in which Purple accused Intellibed of patent infringement, theft of trade secrets, and unfair competition.
ASM, a leading supplier of semiconductor wafer processing equipment, in resolving misappropriation of trade secrets claims brought in Arizona State Court by its chief, and larger, rival – Applied Materials, related to the threatened use of supposed trade secrets by a former employee of Applied that was hired by ASM. S&C successfully opposed Applied’s motions for emergency injunctive relief and expedited discovery and after S&C’s motion to dismiss the complaint was fully briefed, the parties agreed to settle.
Evertz Technologies in connection with substantial California trade secret misappropriation litigation, including defeating two successive injunction motions.
Goldman, Sachs & Co. at the TCW/Gundlach trade secret misappropriation trial, in a case arising from Gundlach’s departure from TCW and his establishment of a competing investment advisory business, DoubleLine Capital.
Micro Systems Engineering, Inc. (MSEI) in obtaining a trial victory against Universal Instruments Corp. in a case alleging copyright, trade secret and contractual claims. Following a six-day jury trial, the court granted MSEI’s motion for judgment as a matter of law. S&C obtained an affirmance of that ruling from the Second Circuit in May 2019.
Terran Biosciences and the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) in a trade secret misappropriation and related torts case pending in federal court in Maryland against a competitor, Compass Pathfinder Limited, who stole trade secrets from UMB under the guise of a non-disclosure agreement.
A Biotechnology Company in ongoing trade secret litigation.
A Major Technology Company in connection with a competitor’s hiring of senior technical employees and potential trade secret misappropriation by an employee suspected of stealing sensitive data and intellectual property.
Ubiquiti in responding to a data extortion attack followed by a self-styled whistleblower’s public claim that the company had deficient cybersecurity and covered up the attack. The company faced federal and state enforcement inquiries, and putative class action and derivative litigation. Working with law enforcement, we identified the perpetrator: the self-styled “whistleblower,” who led cloud security for the company. He was prosecuted and convicted, and all litigation and investigations were voluntarily dismissed with no cost to our client.