Trade Secrets, Computer Fraud & Non-Competes

As today’s businesses meet the challenges of an intense global market, securing intellectual capital, trade secrets, and confidential information is more crucial than ever. At a minimum, failure to take both proactive and reactive measures could result in significant loss of profitability and goodwill. Even companies with sound protective policies, procedures, and agreements in place must be ready to protect themselves if intellectual capital theft arises.

HOW WE HELP

Our Trade Secrets, Computer Fraud & Non-Compete attorneys help our clients holistically protect their intellectual capital by advising on how to avoid trade secret misappropriation and by aggressively litigating when a violation occurs.

To protect against trade secret misappropriation and theft, we counsel our clients on how to best secure their property—including audits of existing trade secrets and intellectual capital; confidentiality, non-compete, and nondisclosure agreements; electronic information protection systems; and other trade secret protection policies and employee training practices. Likewise, we work with our clients to manage employees’ use of social media to avoid inadvertent disclosures of company trade secrets or confidential information. Finally, we recommend innovative and proven strategies to shore up weak or non-existent protective measures and negotiate more effective agreements with business partners and allies.

When an employee, former employee, or competitor is caught stealing confidential business assets or violating non-compete or nonsolicitation agreements, we help our clients protect, preserve, and recover their property. Our attorneys seek injunctions and work collaboratively with law enforcement personnel, including the US Attorney’s Office, FBI, and local authorities, to pursue criminal charges against alleged wrongdoers. In addition, we work with private investigators to investigate and recover highly sensitive and valuable information. Our experienced litigators also regularly and aggressively defend individuals and companies who have been accused of violating covenants or stealing, using, or disclosing confidential information. Our experience representing both companies and employees as plaintiffs and as defendants gives us a balanced, practical approach to delivering effective solutions to our clients. In the last decade, our team has handled more than 150 trade secret cases, either under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act or under state law.

We have experience representing clients in every industry, including technology, manufacturing, retail, food and beverage, health care, biotech, medical devices, pharmaceutical, financial services, insurance, logistics, and automotive. Our attorneys have handled hundreds of actions in state and federal courts throughout the country, as well as covenant enforcement proceedings before FINRA-convened arbitration panels and other alternative dispute resolution venues.

THE SEYFARTH EXPERIENCE

Our attorneys help clients run their businesses more effectively by keeping them apprised of important developments in trade secrets law, including changes that necessitate new agreements or revised employee onboarding and separation procedures. We are able tap the resources of our expansive national platform by working with our eDiscovery & Information Governance team to ensure that our clients are properly preserving, assembling, and recovering information necessary to build their case. Our national practice also enables us to maintain an unparalleled database of state-specific research, briefs, and other documentation that gives our clients an added edge.