What must happen for a business professional to misappropriate a trade secret in San Diego or anywhere throughout California?  What constitutes a trade secret and what do you have to do to protect the secrets of your company?

Establish Your Trade Secrets

The first step to establish your trade secrets is to identify the unique, publicly unknowable, private or core business information or property that are central to your company’s strategy, marketing and success. 

Do you have any intellectual property or IP?  Is your IP registered or copyrighted?  Intellectual property can include any unique creation of the mind including trademarks, taglines or slogans, marketing materials, computer software or algorithms, inventions, logos, symbols, or brand names your company used in commercial business. 

A trade secret can include internal confidential information such as customer lists, secret recipes, unique marketing tactics, supplier information, a manual or specific process that achieves a unique outcome.  The fact that it is a trade “secret” means it is only known by a specific and limited group of people, access to the information is limited and it is properly and plainly identified as a trade secret.

What Must Happen for an Employee, Partner or Competitor to Misappropriate a Trade Secret?

What must happen for an employee, business partner, supplier, customer or competitor to misappropriate a trade secret?  Misappropriation means the individual has gained illegal or unauthorized access to the information through theft, fraud, misrepresentation, a breach of the fiduciary duty or some other duty to the company, a breach of a non-disclosure agreement or even bribery and either published it, disclosed it to another or used it to compete directly against your company.

In order to successfully prove that a person has misappropriated a trade secret your Watkins Firm attorney must prove the information was properly labeled and access was secured and limited, and that the alleged misappropriation was achieved through unauthorized access. We must also prove the information was actually used or threatened to be used to the detriment of your company.

Pro-Tip: “If someone has used inappropriate access, theft or other means to misappropriate a trade secret we can put a stop to the use of those secrets and seek appropriate compensation as well.  Sometimes money’s not enough. Sometimes someone has such an advantage and they’re stealing such a giant market share where money’s not enough. And you have a unique loss.

You’re suffering unique damages that can’t be compensated and you need an injunction to put an immediate stop to what has happened. There are two types of injunctions you get a temporary injunction first, that’s right away. And then within 30 days, or so you get a hearing, everybody briefs it. And the judge decides whether you’re going to keep that injunction, which is a preliminary injunction, all the way to trial and at trial, then they decide where they’re going to make it permanent.”

We are able to select the nature of available recoveries including actual damages or losses, the amount the perpetrator gained (known as “enrichment”), or both.  Royalties for the specified period of time may be applicable.  If elements of fraud, malicious action(s) or other extreme actions or outcomes exist the relief may include punitive damages including attorneys fees. “Exemplary damages” double the amount of the damages based upon willful or malicious behavior.

We invite you to review our podcast Episode 16 – Unfair Competition as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.