Experienced Attorneys for Misappropriation of Trade Secrets

Are you searching for experienced attorneys for misappropriation of trade secrets in California? Many savvy California business owners understand that non-compete agreements are illegal in the State of California. However, the greatest risk is often an employee who uses their knowledge of your customers, suppliers, processes and/or strategies to compete against you. What are your options as a California business or employer to protect the essence of your business and keep your secrets protected? What are trade secrets and how can a strategy built around the misappropriation of trade secrets help to protect your company?

What are Trade Secrets?

Trade secret agreements can form a strong and defensible legal shield around your business. The experienced San Diego business attorneys at the Watkins Firm have been helping our clients to craft enforceable strategies and contracts around trade secrets for more than 40 years. A sound legal strategy will clearly identify all of your company’s intellectual property and trade secrets in documentation which includes hiring communications, the employment contract, employee handbook as well as the company’s policies and procedures manual. We work with our clients to develop and implement successful trade secret strategies to protect vital and proprietary corporate information and practices.

A Better Legal Strategy

There is a stronger strategy which can provide many of the protections for California employers in a state where non-compete agreements are illegal: misappropriation of trade secrets and corporate proprietary information. If you are searching for experienced attorneys for misappropriation of trade secrets in California, the Watkins Firm has more than four decades of experience helping California businesses and employers to protect proprietary information, customer data, supplier information, insider knowledge and marketing strategies and other trade secrets associated with their company. We can structure contracts and internal processes that create trade secrets and proprietary information and restrict your employees from using this information outside of their employment with your company.

Protecting Your Trade Secrets

Once a solid foundation of contracts, manuals and identification is in place, regular and consistent action must be taken to protect and control the security of the information or IP as well as access. If an employee, supplier or contractor takes your proprietary information and trade secrets and attempts to compete against you the attorneys at the Watkins Firm has decades of experience managing litigation for misappropriation of trade secrets in San Diego and successfully protecting our client’s interests.

Pro-Tip: “The value of a misappropriation of trade secrets strategy is not only a strategy to consider in California since non-compete agreements are illegal. The value of this strategy lies in the ability to enforce it when a trade secret is disclosed or used against the company in competition. One must be able to prove that the information, process or trade secret was unfairly accessed or removed, disclosed or otherwise competitively implemented by the party who took it. The trade secret was thereby used against the interests of your company without authorization. The misappropriation of a trade secret opens the violator to exposure of legal remedies including an immediate injunction to cease further actions or competition as well as the recovery of financial damages associated with the misappropriation.

Unfortunately, the types of people who attempt to do these types of things are well known to you: employees, co-owners or shareholders, vendors, or even customers. How are you supposed to protect your ‘secret recipe’ for success, the unique creations and processes developed by your company, and the strategies that give your company the competitive edge?

The business attorneys at the Watkins Firm have more than 40 years of experience with strategies to protect your corporate interests, including the establishment and enforcement of trade secrets. We invite you to a discussion. There are specific steps your organization would need to take to develop, implement and enforce a trade secret strategy, and prevent a current or former employee or business partner from using your company’s trade secret information, processes or intellectual property and deploying it for personal gain or to compete against you.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner