Trade Secrets
McKenna Long & Aldridge’s (MLA) attorneys have vast experience handling a wide array of trade secret issues. Specifically, our attorneys assist our clients in developing methods to protect their valuable, competitively sensitive information. To that end, we assist our clients in developing internal procedures, security measures, and other methodologies necessary to keep proprietary information "secret." We routinely assist our clients in the development of license agreements and confidentiality agreements with employees, suppliers and customers. We also counsel our clients in the development of new products and the hiring of employees from competitors to maximize the protection of their assets and to minimize and avoid potential liability.
We are well-versed in the interplay between patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret protection, and we understand the need to balance the advantages and disadvantages of seeking each type of protection. We routinely provide advice to our clients on the often competing interests in the laws to maximize the protection of our clients’ IP assets and avoid the pitfalls of an inadvertent loss of rights.
When there is a threat of misappropriation of proprietary information, we help our clients preserve their rights by prosecuting trade secret claims arising from corporate espionage, confidentiality agreements, license agreements, employee defections, government disclosures, and other events. We also defend against allegations of trade secret theft. We have extensive experience in all phases of trade secrets litigation, ranging from investigations, injunctions, protective orders, discovery, motions practice, the successful trial to verdict of trade secret claims, and appeals.
We also assist clients with the evaluation and transfer of trade secrets in mergers, acquisitions and other asset sales. Our trade secret clients range from some of the largest global companies to small local businesses, including in the aerospace, defense, automotive, health care, construction, retail, real estate, information services, software, computer hardware, and high technology industries.
Advisories
- May 16, 2012
- March 30, 2012Following its decision in Bilski, on March 20, 2012, a unanimous (9-0) Supreme Court handed down its decision in Mayo v. Prometheus-the Court’s second opinion on patentable subject matter in less than two years. Prometheus is the sole and exclusive licensee of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,355,623 and 6,680,302, which claim methods for determining the optimal dosage of thiopurine drugs used to treat immune-mediated gastrointestinal disorders, and marketed a PROMETHEUS Thiopurine Metabolites test that used the technology covered by the patents-in-suit.
- October 14, 2011