By Russell Beck and Erika Hahn The ability to protect trade secrets (and other legitimate business interests, including customer goodwill) has been hit by a perfect storm caused by the current coronavirus pandemic: Loss of control. With much of the ...

Tagged with: Trade Secrets

While they still worked for plaintiff Red Valve, Inc., but were forming the defendant-competitor Titan Valve, Inc., defendants Payne and Aedo misappropriated Red Valve’s trade secrets. Defendants’ use of Red Valve’s trade secrets (price data, customer database, design documents, and ...

Tagged with: Trade Secrets

The owners of a dance studio in Clemmons will not be able to sue a rival studio in Charlotte for misappropriating its trade secrets because its descriptions of those secrets in its pleadings were too vague, the North Carolina Supreme ...

Tagged with: Trade Secrets

Addison Whitney, LLC v. Cashion (Lawyers Weekly No. 020-033-17, 28 pp.) (Adam Conrad, J.) 2017 NCBC 23 Holding: Although plaintiff has shown that its database of drug information, collection of non-public case studies, and client lists and related information are ...

Tagged with: Trade Secrets

When seeking an injunction barring a former employee from disclosing a company’s trade secrets, plaintiffs are not required to prove the employee actually misappropriated  the trade secrets in question to obtain an injunction, according to a Feb. 3 ruling out ...

Tagged with: Trade Secrets

360 Mortgage Group, LLC v. Stonegate Mortgage Corp. (Lawyers Weekly No. 002-020-16, 20 pp.) (James Fox, S.J.) 5:14-cv-00310; E.D.N.C. Holding: Although plaintiff has shown that there is value in its list of vetted mortgage brokers, it has not shown that ...

Tagged with: Trade Secrets

RLM Communications Inc. v. Tuschen (Lawyers Weekly No. 001-134-16, 28 pp.) (Diaz, J.) No. 14-2351, July 28, 2016; USDC at Raleigh, N.C. (Flanagan, J.) 4th Cir. Holding: The 4th Circuit affirms summary judgment for a former executive of a cybersecurity ...

Tagged with: non-compete Trade Secrets

The world’s most famous trade secret, the vigilantly guarded recipe for Coca-Cola, is kept in a purpose-built vault in the company’s Atlanta headquarters. Most trade secrets, however, are kept on computers, where they are decidedly more vulnerable to hackers and ...

Tagged with: Copyright Trade Secrets

At what point does a business practice rise to the level of being a trade secret? And can dances and the methods of teaching them be classified as trade secrets under state law? Those are the central questions at the ...

Tagged with: Trade Secrets

DSM Dyneema, LLC v. Thagard (Lawyers Weekly No. 020-002-16, 11 pp.) (Louis Bledsoe III, J.) 2015 NCBC 112 Holding: Although plaintiff’s requested production of the Honeywell defendants’ unidirectional tape would place Honeywell’s proprietary materials and information in its competitor’s possession ...

Tagged with: Trade Secrets