Texas trade secrets attorney – North Texas Legal News

Texas Introduces 3 Bills To Curb Application of Anti-Slapp Statute in Non-Compete and Trade Secrets Litigation

The Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA), enacted by the legislature in 2011, has been wrecking havoc in business and employment disputes due to the statute’s overbroad language, confusing and conflicting interpretation by the various courts of appeals and federal courts, and defendants’ persistence in invoking the statute’s dismissal process in trade secrets and non-compete lawsuits.

In late 2018 and early 2019, at least two Texas Courts of Appeals issued scathing opinions criticizing the statute’s dismissal mechanism being used by defendants in the run-of-the-mill trade secrets and non-compete disputes. It appears that the legislature heard the complaints from the bench and the business community, which is why in the past week, we have seen three new bills that seek to exempt trade secrets and non-compete disputes from the grasp of the TCPA.

HB 3547 introduced by Rep. Joe Moody (D) on March 6, 2019:

SECTION 1. Sections 27.001(2) and (6), Civil Practice and Remedies Code, are amended to read as follows:

(2) “Exercise of the right of association” means a communication between individuals who join together to collectively express, promote, pursue, or defend common interests. The term does not include a communication that is the basis of a claim asserting a misappropriation of a trade secret or a breach of a covenant not to compete.

SB 2162 introduced by Sen. Angela Paxton (R) on March 8, 2019 and HB2730 introduced by Rep. Jeff Leach (R) seek to amend the TCPA as follows:

SECTION 8. Section 27.010, Civil Practice and Remedies Code, is amended to read as follows:

Sec. 27.010. EXEMPTIONS. [(a)] This chapter does not apply to: …

(7) a legal action to enforce:
(A) a noncompete agreement;
(B) a nondisclosure agreement; or
(C) a non-disparagement agreement.

The bills contain many other amendments to the statute that are unrelated to trade secrets and non-compete litigation and they face tremendous opposition from the press. For example, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press issued a press release stating its concern that “HB 2730 and SB 2162 would, if enacted, significantly undermine key parts of TCPA and, therefore, speech protections in Texas.” Therefore, their passage remains an open question.

We will continue to monitor their progress through the legislature and will provide an update if they pass.

Leiza Dolghih is a partner at Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP in Dallas, Texas and a Co-Chair of the firm’s Trade Secrets and Non-Compete Disputes national practice. Her practice includes commercial, intellectual property and employment litigation. You can contact her directly at Leiza.Dolghih@LewisBrisbois.com or (214) 722-7108.

The Fifth Circuit Issues Its First Decision on the Defend Trade Secrets Act

November 27, 2018February 5, 2019 by Leiza Dolghih, posted in Intellectual Property Disputes, Temporary Injunctions, Texas Business Law, Texas Employment Law, Texas Legal News, Trade Secrets

trade secrets label on folder

Two and a half years after the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) became effective, the Fifth Circuit has issued its first opinion addressing the statute. Earlier this month, the Court ruled that: (1) a party must “prevail” before it can recover any attorney’s fees under the DTSA and (2) a plaintiff’s dismissal of its claims without prejudice does not confer the “prevailing party” status on defendants.

Dunster Live, LLC v. Lonestar Logos Management Company, LLC involved a situation where the plaintiff, Dunster, having lost an injunction hearing in a trade secrets case in federal court, wanted to dismiss the case without prejudice and refile it in a state court sans the DTSA claim. Under 41(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, if a defendant has already answered the lawsuit or filed a motion for summary judgment, plaintiff is required to file a motion with the court asking for a permission to dismiss its claims without prejudice. The district court granted Dunster’s motion to dismiss, and the plaintiff proceeded to file an almost identical trade secrets lawsuit but without the DTSA claim in a state court.

After the dismissal, Lonestar sought to recover its attorney’s fees of over $600,000 on the basis that Dunster had brought its federal lawsuit in “bad faith.” The district court denied Lonestar’s request for attorney’s fees holding that a dismissal without prejudice of Dunster’s claims did not make Lonestar a “prevailing party” under the DTSA.

Lonestar furter argued that Dunster sought to evade paying attorneys fees by strategically seeking a dismissal without prejudice once it realized that its lawsuit was doomed, and that the DTSA’s “bad faith” provision supported a fee award even when a defendant had not officially prevailed. The DTSA’s provision upon which Lonestar relied states the following:

[i]f a claim of the misappropriation is made in bad faith, which may be established by circumstantial evidence, a motion to terminate an injunction is made or opposed in bad faith, or the trade secret was willfully and maliciously misappropriated, [a court may] award reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing party. 18 U.S.C. 1836(b)(3)(D).

The district court rejected this argument as well denying Lonestar’s request for attorney’s fees.

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling finding that a dismissal without prejudice under the DTSA did not confer the status of a “prevailing party” on Lonestar, similar to other federal statutes that allow prevailing parties to recover attorney’s fees, such as the Equal Access to Justice Act, Patent Act, Civil Rights Act, or Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

The Court also rejected Lonestar’s argument that the DTSA only required a showing of “bad faith” by a plaintiff in filing a lawsuit and not a showing that a defendant was a “prevailing party.” It explained that “[a]llowing bad faith alone to support a fee award would improperly read the concluding language of Section 1836(b)(3)(D) – ‘the prevailing party’ – out of the statute.” Thus, a party seeking attorney’s fees under the DTSA must establish both: (1) that it is a prevailing party and (2) one of the three qualifying scenarios described in 1836(b)(3)(D).

TAKEAWAY: With the DTSA becoming effective on May 11, 2016, plaintiffs in Texas now have a choice of whether to seek redress for trade secrets misappropriation in state courts or federal courts. Dunster makes it clear that as long as plaintiff has brought its DTSA claim in good faith in federal court, it may have a chance to change the strategy down the road and explore its claims in state court without facing the penalty of having to pay defendant’s attorneys fees as the result of dismissing its federal lawsuit without prejudice.

The Two Steps All Small Businesses Can Take to Protect Their Trade Secrets

November 3, 2018January 6, 2019 by Leiza Dolghih, posted in Confidentiality Agreements in Texas, Intellectual Property Disputes, Small Business Help, Texas Legal News, Trade Secrets

I-Too-Like-To-Live-Dangerously Does your business have a client list? A tested marketing strategy? A sales script? A proprietary business process? Those are just a few things that may give your company a competitive advantage over other similar businesses and may be considered your company’s “trade secrets.”

Now imagine one of your employees walking out the door and taking that information to a competitor because they offered him or her a slightly better compensation or using it to start their own copycat business. This happens on a daily basis. Yet, when it does, many business owners are not prepared to deal with it and have done nothing to address it ahead of time.

So, if your company does nothing else in 2019 to protect its trade secrets, it should do at least the following two things to prevent its competitive information from walking out the door with the next employee who leaves:

Have your employees sign confidentiality and non-competition/non-solicitation agreements. These agreements do not have to be complex, but they have to comply with the laws of the state where your company operates and possibly with the laws of the states where the employees work. So, for example, if your company is based in Texas, but you have employees in other states, your confidentiality and non-compete/non-solicit agreements must meet Texas-specific requirements for such agreements and may also need to comply with the laws of other states.

If you think these agreements are not enforceable, check our my prior post addressing the most common misconceptions about non-compete agreements.

Learn about the security features of the document management systems you use and implement them. Many small businesses use Google, Microsoft 360, Dropbox or some other similar systems to maintain and manage company records. All of those systems allow the administrator to: (1) set restrictions on which employees can access which information within the company; (2) track what the employees do with that information when they access it; (3) set restrictions on whether the employees can print, download, copy or share the information with other employees or people outside the company; (4) periodically change passwords to access the systems; and (5) many other features that can help business owners prevent their information being shared outside the company.

Additionally, many other programs, applications, CRM and ERP systems, sales databases, etc., have their own settings that restrict how the sensitive and proprietary information contained in them can be shared within and outside the company. Business owners should determine who within the company should have access to which parts of each system, limit such access on the “need-to-know” basis and set the systems to either prevent individuals from downloading, printing, emailing or otherwise exporting the information out of the system, or alerting the company when such actions are taken. Regardless of whether a business sets the alerts or restrictions, at a minimum, each company system should keep track or log what employees are doing with respect to the sensitive information they use in the course of their work.

Additionally, anytime you consider purchasing a new document management systems, or an ERP, CRM, sales system or databases, consider not only whether it matches your business needs, but also what security measures it offers in terms of tracking and limiting access to the system by the employees.

BOTTOM LINE: Large companies can dedicate a lot of resources to protecting their trade secrets – resources that are not available to small businesses. However, every small business has the resources to implement the two steps described above. If you, as the owner of the company, do not take the time to put the proper employee agreements in place and to educate yourself about the security measures available to you and use them, the employees will know the security gaps and will be in position to exploit them when presented with the right incentives.

Is Credit Card Information Stored by a Restaurant a “Trade Secret”?

October 25, 2018February 5, 2019 by Leiza Dolghih, posted in Intellectual Property Disputes, Texas Legal News, Trade Secrets

Credit Card Data Breach A federal district court in Colorado recently ruled that customer credit card information was not a “trade secret” under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA).

This case arose out of a 2017 data breach of Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc.’s computer system and point of service (POS) terminals which resulted in the theft of customers’ credit card and debit card data. As the result of the breach, several financial institutions had to replace their members’ credit and debit cards and refund fraudulent payments. Consequently, they sued Chipotle for negligence, unfair competition, and a violation of the DTSA, on behalf of themselves and other financial institutions.

Plaintiffs argued that the credit card information of their members was a “trade secret” under the DTSA because: (1) it was plaintiffs’ financial data; (2) they had taken reasonable measure to keep it secret; and (3) the data had independent economic value, and that Chipotle misappropriated it in violation of the federal statute.

The district court noted that the question of whether the credit card information was a trade secret was a question of first impression as neither plaintiffs not Chipotle cited any authority clearly addressing this issue. However, it concluded that because the credit card information simply created an access mechanism for the members’ accounts, it had no independent value. In other words, the value of the credit card information derived from the thing that it was intended to protect – a bank account. See N. Star Media, LLC v. Winogradsky-Sobel, 2011 WL 13220157, at *10-11 (C.D. Cal. May 23, 2011); State Analysis, Inc. v. Am. Fin. Servs. Assoc., 621 F. Supp. 2d 309, 321 (E.D. Va. 2009); see also MicroStrategy Inc. v. Bus. Objects, S.A., 331 F. Supp. 2d 396, 429 (E.D. Va. 2004)(expressing skepticism that a CD key is a trade secret); Tryco, Inc. v. U.S. Med. Source, L.L.C., 80 Va. Cir. 619 (2010) (“Courts have repeatedly held that collections of numbers and/or letters, whose only value is to access other potentially valuable information, do not by themselves have independent economic value.”).

The court reasoned that the payment card data (including cardholder names, credit or debit card numbers, and corresponding CVVs) was similar to passwords and usernames that provided access to something of value, i.e. an individual’s line of credit with a financial institution or money in an account with a financial institution. Absent a connection to either a line of credit or a bank account, payment card data was simply a string of alpha or numeric (or indeed other typographical) symbols, and, thus, had no independent economic value.

Because the court concluded that the credit card information was not a trade secret, it did not address whether a misappropriation occurred during the breach or whether Chipotle could be liable under the DTSA.

Leiza litigates trade secrets and non-compete agreements disputes in a variety of industries. If you are a party to a dispute involving a non-compete agreement or theft of confidential information, contact Leiza at Leiza.Dolghih@lewisbrisbois.com or (214) 722-7108 or fill out the form below.

A Study Concludes Mentioning “Trade Secrets” in Form 10-K Leads to More Cyber Breaches

August 12, 2018January 6, 2019 by Leiza Dolghih, posted in Intellectual Property Disputes, Texas Legal News, Trade Secrets

screen-shot-2012-11-01-at-8-08-46-am A recently-published study* concluded that companies that mention the existence of trade secrets in their publicly filed Form 10-K disclosures are 30% more likely to become victims of cyber attacks. Among those companies, the probability of a cyber attack is even higher for younger firms, firms with fewer employees, and firms operating in less concentrated industries.

Considering that trade secrets consist of all forms and types of “financial, business, scientific, technical, economic, or engineering information” and, along with other types of intellectual property, may constitute more than 80% of a company’s value, their theft can severely damage the company’s value or even bring its demise.

The study analyzed a total of 39,992 10-Ks from about 7,500 companies. Of those, 12,542 mentioned trade secrets, and 591 became victims of a cyber breach. The authors searched the companies’ Form 10-K disclosures for words such as “trade secrets” and “trade secrecy” and then analyzed the frequency of cyber breaches of such companies with those whose Form 10-K disclosures did not mention such words. Those who mentioned the key phrases often did so in the context of listing what types of intellectual property they had in their portfolio and what measures they were taking to protect their trade secrets.

According to the study, companies feel safe mentioning “trade secrets” in their public filings without revealing the nature of such trade secrets and, often, discuss the protection measures they take to protect this intellectual property, such as non-disclosure agreements with employees. However, according to the authors, even mentioning the existence of trade secrets increased the probability of a cyber attack by 30%.

BOTTOM LINE: Trade secrets only have value as long as they stay secret, so once they come into a competitor’s hands or become publicly available, their value is often destroyed. In light of the study, the companies may want to omit mentioning trade secrets in their public filings and press releases and reserve the discussion of their trade secrets protection measures for the confidential correspondence with their shareholders.

*The study was done by Michael Ettredge and Yijun Li of the University of Kansas School of Business, and Feng Guo of the Iowa State University College of Business.

Is it a Crime to Take Employers’ Trade Secrets?

June 18, 2018January 6, 2019 by Leiza Dolghih, posted in Confidentiality Agreements in Texas, Intellectual Property Disputes, Non-Compete Agreements, Texas Business Law, Texas Employment Law, Texas Legal News, Trade Secrets

corporate Few employees realize that when they take their employers’ trade secrets with them when leaving their jobs they may be exposing themselves to criminal liability under the Economic Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to steal trade secrets when: (1) the information relates to a product in interstate or foreign commerce (which is virtually any product now days) or (2) the intended beneficiary is a foreign power.

Of course, the overwhelming majority of employees do not take trade secrets for the purpose of selling the information to a foreign government; however, they can still be guilty of trade secrets theft if they were aware that the misappropriation would injure their employer, as the owner of trade secrets, to the benefit of someone else.

When is Trade Secrets Theft a Crime?

Under the Economic Espionage Act, a criminal defendant is guilty of trade secrets theft and can be fined and imprisoned for up to 10 years if:

The defendant stole, or without authorization of the owner, obtained, destroyed or conveyed information;
The defendant knew this information was proprietary;
The information was in fact a trade secret;
The defendant intended to convert the trade secret to the economic benefit of anyone other than the owner;
The defendant knew or intended that the owner of the trade secret would be injured; and
The trade secret was related to or was included in a product that was produced or placed in interstate or foreign commerce.

What is a “Trade Secret” Under the Statute?

The definition of a “trade secret” under the statute is very broad. It means all forms and types of financial, business, scientific, technical, economic, or engineering information, including patterns, plans, compilations, program devices, formulas, designs, prototypes, methods, techniques, processes, procedures, programs, or codes, whether tangible or intangible, and whether or how stored, compiled, or memorialized physically, electronically, graphically, photographically, or in writing if (A) the owner has taken reasonable measures to keep such information secret; and (B) the information derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable through proper means by, another person who can obtain economic value from the disclosure or use of the information.

A recent indictment of six former and current Fitbit employees, who used to work for its rival Jawbone, demonstrates what conduct may result in criminal charges under the Economic Espionage Act. These six individuals were indicted on the grounds that they “knowingly received and possessed the Jawbone trade secrets, knowing them to have been stolen and appropriated, obtained, and converted without authorization, with the intent to convert the trade secrets to the economic benefit of someone other than Jawbone, and intending and knowing that the offense would injure Jawbone.”

Specifically, the indictment states that after these employees had resigned from Jawbone and signed certifications stating that they had returned all of Jawbone property, they continued to possess the following trade secrets – while working for Jawbone’s direct competitor – Fitbit:

Chinese user market study of Chinese consumers and their motivation, influences, preferred brands, reasons for buying fitness trackers and shopping methodologies.
Vendor and pricing list for international suppliers, compounded over time through trial and error, including competitive negotiated pricing and their specialized skills or equipment.
Schematics, design specification and detailed description of unreleased products.
Quantitative and qualitative studies of Jawbone users’ characteristics, reasons of using such trackers and a multitude of other factors useful in product development.

BOTTOM LINE: Companies should educate themselves and their employees on what types of information such companies consider to be their trade secrets and educate employees on what consequences they will face if they take that information to the competitors. If a trade secrets theft is detected, companies should assess whether the theft is serious enough to pursue criminal charges against the thief.

An Injunction in a Theft-of-Trade-Secrets Case Cannot Prohibit a Party From Using Publicly Available Information

February 20, 2018January 6, 2019 by Leiza Dolghih, posted in Employment Agreements in Texas, Intellectual Property Disputes, Temporary Injunctions, Texas Legal News, Trade Secrets

download Companies suing for trade secrets theft often want not just the monetary compensation for the stolen trade secrets, but also a court order – an injunction – prohibiting the other side from using the stolen information.

In order to be enforceable, however, under the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, an injunction must be “in clear, specific and unambiguous terms” so that the party enjoined can understand the duties and obligations imposed by the injunction and so that the court can determine whether the injunction has been violated. Additionally, an injunction cannot prohibit a defendant from doing something he has a legal right to do, e.g., use publicly available information along with the trade secret information. Thus, a court order prohibiting a defendant from using trade secrets must be broad enough to cover all possible circumstances while narrow enough to include only the illegal activities. This is easier said than done.

In a recent case, the Houston Court of Appeals reversed a permanent injunction order which could be read to cover both – the trade secret data and publicly available information. In TMRJ Holdings, Inc. v. Inhance Techs., LLC, the injunction at issue prohibited defendant from:

(1) “using, disclosing, transferring, or possessing, in whole or in part, [plaintiff’s] trade secret information,” which was defined as “compilation of specified data” for various plaintiff’s processes; and

(2) “operating, manufacturing, designing, transferring, selling, or offering for sale” certain processes that “contain, are based on, or utilize, in whole or in part, [plaintiff’s] trade secrets.”

The Court concluded that the injunction was not specific enough because failure to define “specified data” and the general description of “trade secrets” did not give adequate notice of the prohibited conduct to defendant. Specifically, the injunction did not distinguish between the unique, protected elements of plaintiff’s data compilations, processes, or equipment from that which plaintiff’s competitors use throughout the industry. As the result, the Court reversed the permanent injunction in this case and remanded it to the trial court to consider in light of its opinion.

CONCLUSION: In trade secrets theft cases, in addition to proving the elements of an injunction, plaintiffs must also make sure the injunction order’s language is specific enough, without giving away the trade secrets information, to provide defendant with a clear notice of what it can and cannot do.

The Fifth Circuit Rules that Federal Law Preempts Unfair Competition Claim Under Texas Law

November 27, 2017January 6, 2019 by Leiza Dolghih, posted in Confidentiality Agreements in Texas, Employment Law, Intellectual Property Disputes, Non-Compete Agreements, Non-Compete Agreements in Texas, Texas Legal News, Trade Secrets

Preemption

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently considered whether the federal copyright and patent laws (rock!) preempt Texas common law claim of unfair competition by misappropriation (scissors!). The question reared its head amidst a web of lawsuits involving a medical device company, ThermoTek, and its former distributor, in which the company accused the distributor of obtaining its trade secrets involving a medical device he sold for them and proceeding to use the information to manufacture his own line of competing devices.

The Fifth Circuit explained that the federal Copyright Act preempts a state law claim where (1) the intellectual property rights at issue are within the subject matter of copyright and (2) the state law protects rights in that property that are equivalent to any of the exclusive rights within the general scope of copyright. Meanwhile, the federal patent statutes preempt a state claim where its aim is to protect “the functional aspects of a product” because such claim would likely obstruct Congress’s goals by offering patent-like protection to intellectual property that its owner chose not to protect with a patent.

In applying the above tests, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the various aspects of the unfair competition by misappropriation claim in ThermoTek’s case against its former distributor were preempted either by the federal copyright or patent laws.

The Copyright Act preempted the claim to the extent that ThermoTek alleged that the distributor misappropriated its written materials related to the medical device – here, manuals, reports, billing information, and other written documents – because such materials fell within the subject matter of copyright and the unfair competition by misappropriation claim did not qualitatively differ from a copyright claim. Meanwhile, the federal patent law preempted the unfair competition claim to the extent it sought to protect the medical devices themselves or their functional aspects because the claim substantially interfered with the public’s enjoyment of unpatented aspects of the devices that ThermoTek publicly disclosed.

BOTTOM LINE: On a very basic level, the doctrine of preemption allows federal claims to preempt state law claims if they concern the same subject matter. If not analyzed strategically and addressed in the pleadings, this doctrine can wreak havoc on a party’s litigation strategy in a trade secrets lawsuit. For example, in the ThermoTek lawsuit, the jury found in the company’s favor awarding it $6,000,000.00 in damages on the unfair competition claim. However, after the trial, the court found that the unfair competition claim was preempted by federal law and dismissed it leaving ThermoTek with $0. In conclusion, trade secrets claims do not exist in a vacuum, but should be analyzed in the context of the existing intellectual property framework along with other types of IP.

Texas Amends Its Trade Secrets Statute Effective September

June 12, 2017 by Leiza Dolghih, posted in Texas Business Law, Texas Employment Law, Texas Legal News, Trade Secrets

good-wife Texas Governor recently signed House Bill 1995, which amends Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act (“TUTSA”) and aligns is with the Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”).

HB 1995 will go into effect on September 1, 2017 and will eliminate the difference between the TUTSA’s and DTSA’s definitions of “trade secrets,” removing an incentive to forum shop. Additionally, the statute will emphasize that the owner must take reasonable “measures,” and not just “efforts,” to protect its trade secrets. HB 1995 also introduces the following new definitions:

• “Owner” means, with respect to a trade secret, the person or entity in whom or in which rightful, legal, or equitable title to, or the right to enforce rights in, the trade secret is reposed.

• “Willful and malicious misappropriation,” means intentional misappropriation resulting from the conscious disregard of the rights of the owner of the trade secret.

• “Clear and convincing evidence” required to establish willful and malicious misappropriation is defined as the “measure or degree of proof that will produce in the mind of the trier of fact a firm belief or conviction as to the truth of the allegations sought to be established.”

Additionally, come September, Texas courts will have to apply a balancing test first articulated in In re M-I, L.L.C., 505 S.W.3d 569 (Tex. 2016) when determining whether a party involved in a trade secrets lawsuit can be denied access to documents or testimony about its competitor’s trade secrets. TUTSA codified this test as follows:

a presumption exists that a party is allowed to participate and assist counsel in the presentation of the party’s case. At any stage of the action, the court may exclude a party and the party’s representative or limit a party’s access to the alleged trade secret of another party if other countervailing interests overcome the presumption. In making this determination, the court must conduct a balancing test that considers:

• the value of an owner’s alleged trade secret;
• the degree of competitive harm an owner would suffer from the dissemination of the owner’s alleged trade secret to the other party;
• whether the owner is alleging that the other party is already in possession of the alleged trade secret;
• whether a party’s representative acts as a competitive decision maker;
• the degree to which a party’s defense would be impaired by limiting that party’s access to the alleged trade secret;
• whether a party or a party’s representative possesses specialized expertise that would not be available to a party’s outside expert; and
• the stage of the action.

Bottom Line: In light of these new amendments, companies involved in trade secrets disputes in Texas will have to strategize early on – even pre-litigation – not only about proving their claims and defenses but also about protecting their trade secrets during the lawsuit and gathering evidence necessary to obtain attorney’s fees related to the trade secrets misappropriation claim.

Leiza litigates non-compete and trade secrets lawsuits in a variety of industries in federal and state courts. If you are a party to a dispute involving a noncompete agreement or misappropriation of trade secrets, contact Leiza at Leiza.Dolghih@lewisbrisbois.com or (214) 722-7108.

Protect Your Trade Secrets or Lose Them

May 2, 2017October 5, 2017 by Leiza Dolghih, posted in Intellectual Property Disputes, Texas Business Law, Trade Secrets

TradeSecrets The first rule of the fight club is you don’t talk about the fight club. The same rule applies to trade secrets. If you talk about your trade secrets – pricing, customer names, vendor relationships, or other aspects of your business, with people who do not have non-disclosure agreements, you are going to lose the “trade secret” status that such information may carry, which means your employees will be able to take that information to your competitor or their new business.

Under the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act (TUTSA), an owner of a trade secret must use “reasonable efforts under circumstances” to protects its trade secrets. Depending on how large or sophisticated the business is, those methods may include anything from keeping key files in a locked cabinet to passwords for logging into a customer database, to issuing company computers that have no outside ports, to fingerprint and iris-scan access devices.

Obviously, a mom-and-pop shop is not going to install fingerprint access devices or buy an expensive software that will alert it when an employee downloads an unusually large amount of information, but it can implement simple measures like asking all of its employees to execute a non-disclosure agreement as part of their employment file, make sure that the financial and other sensitive information is accessible only to the owners, and make sure that any confidential information, such as customer lists, is clearly marked as “confidential.”

Larger businesses – those that wield a workforce comprised of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of employees – need to have more advanced trade secrets protection measures, as well as the periodic audits of the effectiveness of such measures.

At a bare minimum, all businesses should have a standard confidentiality (non-disclosure) agreement for its employees, vendors, investors, and anyone else who has access to the business’s trade secrets. They should also look at what protection methods are used by their competitors or are common in their industry and implement those that make sense most for the company.

A little time and expense invested in the trade secret protection on the front end can save thousands of dollars down the road. If you think that providing company computers to your employees is too expensive, imagine how much it will cost in legal fees to retrieve your company’s confidential information from the departed employees’ personal devices.

Leiza litigates non-compete and trade secrets lawsuits in a variety of industries, and knows how such disputes typically play out for both parties. If you need assistance with a non-compete or a trade secret misappropriation situation, contact Leiza for a confidential consultation at Leiza.Dolghih@lewisbrisbois.com or (214) 722-7108.

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