Two days ago, the New York Times reported on a lawsuit that was brought by California-based Cybersitter, claiming that two Chinese software companies had engaged in unfair competition, and misappropriated, or stolen, thousands of lines of the code contained in its proprietary software to develop Green Dam, a type of software designed to block users [...]
The fact pattern is all too familiar: D enters into a contract with small business P to jointly develop certain products, and then not only breaches the contract with P, but then breaches his fiduciary duty to P and uses the proprietary information that he gained during their alliance to try and poach P’s proprietary [...]
Trade secret theft is not just a civil monetary matter that is derived from a breach of fiduciary duty or unfair competition. It has criminal implications as well.
In a story that was published earlier today, a former Goldman Sachs vice president was arrested by the FBI based upon this employee’s alleged trade secret theft, more particularly, claims that he stole Goldman’s proprietary automated [...]
I came across earlier this evening entitled “Report: Business Risk of Fraud, Corruption Up Amid Economic Crisis,” which, true to its title, squarely blames the global economic recession for an uptick in employee theft, corruption and dishonesty in the business environment. A careful reading of the article reveals that the holes in the argument advanced [...]
I recently had an experience where an extremely costly commercial lawsuit about a claimed breach of contract and misappropriation of proprietary intellectual property by a fiduciary of a new york small business was avoided. Although I would like to say that the lawsuit was rendered completely moot, and averted entirely, to be completely candid, my efforts weren’t that successful; however, they did have [...]
Over the last several months, I’ve noticed an unmistakable trend: when people that I encounter in the small business litigation context feel that they’ve been wronged, particularly in the context of a breach of contract or breach of a fiduciary duty, they staunchly refuse to settle their case, even if it makes perfect economic sense. [...]
A trade secret theft lawsuit that was recently filed in upstate New York by the Price Chopper chain store illustrates rather vividly how having your small business’s trade secrets – in this case pricing information – can dramatically impact your bottom line.
In its initial suit papers, Price Chopper claims that competitor Giant Market would have someone consistently [...]
On May 21, a Texas jury rendered a verdict against software giant Microsoft, and awarded a relatively small Canadian software company $200 million after finding that Microsoft had infringed on i4i’s proprietary technology. And this isn’t even the first time this year that a jury has found in favor of a much smaller business in [...]
On April 27, a California Federal Court upheld a jury’s $100 million verdict that was rendered in favor of Mattel, Inc., against MGA Entertainment Inc., based on their finding that the concept for the immensely popular Bratz dolls had originated with Mattel, but this idea was pirated, or stolen, by MGA. In rendering his opinion, [...]
Earlier this week, a Texas jury dismissed a software company’s lawsuit against Sun Microsystems which sought damages in the amount of $100 million. In the lawsuit, the software company alleged that after Sun had initially contracted with them to jointly develop certain software, Sun decided about 3 years later that they wanted to go with a different vendor, and transferred [...]