Trade Secrets

California’s A.B. 2013 imposes new disclosure requirements for generative AI systems starting January 1, 2026. Learn who’s covered, what must be disclosed, compliance challenges, and practical steps to protect IP and avoid enforcement risks.
 

Courts are demanding precise, documented proof of trade secrets, and recent appellate decisions show that companies without a proactive asset management program risk losing at both the pleading and summary judgment stages.

Restrictive covenants are unquestionably a significant deal consideration in M&A transactions. In the private equity context, a buyer is focused on restrictive covenants to protect its investment by binding the sellers and other recipients of material deal proceeds to obligations and restrictions for a certain period of time following the transaction. Restrictive covenants serve several purposes and are highly beneficial for a buyer; accordingly, absent any legal limitations and assuming sufficient consideration, a buyer is incentivized to impose restrictive covenants on as many selling parties as possible. However, and not surprisingly, sellers heavily negotiate their post-transaction restrictive covenant obligations to keep their business options as open as possible on a go-forward basis. The conflicting interests of buyers and sellers when it comes to restrictive covenants result in carefully negotiated covenants spread out over multiple transaction documents and employment agreements. This article discusses the common restrictive covenants used in private equity transactions, the importance of such covenants in the key transaction documents, and related enforcement considerations. 

Learn how a joint development agreement (JDA) can impact trade secret protection, illustrated by Pemco Aircraft and Boeing’s case.

A former IT contractor turned full-time employee at MrBeast YouTube LLC (“Beast”) — the content machine built by digital juggernaut, Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast is accused of swiping thousands of confidential files, including trade secrets detailing how Donaldson and his team develops its uniquely successful videos.

This month the Seventh Circuit in Motorola Sols., Inc. v. Hytera Commc’ns Corp. Ltd. upheld the Northern District of Illinois in finding that the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) has extraterritorial reach. Companies can seek relief when misappropriation occurs abroad and for the sales lost abroad when an act in furtherance of the trade secret misappropriation occurs in the United States.

Successful defense of trade secrets in litigation begins with evaluating valuable confidential information and steps taken to safeguard it before any disputes arise. Trade secret asset management allows companies to effectively frame misappropriation or theft claims and advance arguments at every stage of a trade secrets dispute.

Starting a high-tech company is a difficult, exhausting, and thrilling endeavor – one in which founders will face seemingly endless challenges, deadlines, and make or break decisions. From a venture’s inception, founders face numerous decisions that if not thoughtfully considered can result in significant legal and financial risk.

Innovators developing IP strategies for 2023 are reflecting on last year’s key IP issues, including entity size designations for US patent applications, erasures of patent damage awards due to flawed expert opinions, and developments involving the ITC, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and inter partes reviews.

Since the passage of the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), trade secret owners have been able to use allegations of trade secret misappropriation under the DTSA to support civil claims under the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Specifically, DTSA violations that qualify as predicate acts can be used to show a pattern of racketeering activity, which may allow a trade secret owner to state civil claims under RICO, and thus take advantage of the substantial remedies that the RICO statute provides, including the potential for treble damages and attorney’s fees.