Tesla recently filed two lawsuits for theft of trade secrets. In March, the auto maker sued several former employees and the two companies they joined, Zoox and Chinese EV automaker Xiaopeng. The trade secrets involved their driverless vehicle technology. Haliburton just sued a former employee for stealing information, getting a patent on it, and then trying to sell it back to Haliburton. Phillips is suing a former employee for stealing secrets that will give competitors a “decades long head start.” Waymo, Google’s self-driving car program, settled with Uber for theft of trade secrets. The settlement was reported by CNN Business to be a portion of Uber’s equity, estimated at $245 million. In In August, the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the Northern District of California charged former Google employee Anthony Levandowski with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets from Google under 18 U.S.C. § 1832 of the Economic Espionage Act (EEA). These cases, and many more like them, involve employees leaving and taking trade secrets with them. Employees come and go, but they shouldn’t take your valuable secrets. You can stop them if you have systems in place, but you have only yourself to blame if you don’t.
Recent Posts
- EU Publishes Code of Practice as Deadline for AI Act’s Provisions on General-Purpose AI Models Nears
- Will the Federal Circuit Finally Follow Supreme Court Holdings on the Unavailability of the Laches Defense?
- CAFC Upholds Win for Janssen on Patent for Antipsychotic Med Dosing Regimen
- IP Innovators – From Patent Office to Managing Partner: Chris Agrawal’s Journey
- In Sonos v. Google, the Federal Circuit Has a Chance to Fix Its Prosecution Laches Doctrine