People v. Laiwala, 115 Cal. App. 4th 850, 9 Cal. Rptr. 3d 466 (2004)
Sadrudin Laiwala, a former engineer of Odeum Microsystems, a division of Hyundai Electronics America, allegedly copied and took with him a “DVD copy protection system” immediately prior to his departure from the company. Laiwala was criminally prosecuted for violation of California Penal Code Section 499c, which prohibits the theft of…
Snider v. Superior Court, 113 Cal. App. 4th 1187 (2003)
Quantum Productions, Inc. sued its former sales manager, David Snider, for misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, interference with contractual relations and unfair competition after Snider resigned his employment with Quantum and formed a competing company. Quantum filed a motion to disqualify Snider’s attorney, Dale Larabee, after it learned that Larabee had contacted…
DVD Copy Control Ass’n, Inc. v. Bunner, 31 Cal. 4th 864, 75 P.3d 1 (Cal. 2003)
Jon Johansen, a Norwegian resident, reverse engineered the Content Scrambling System (CSS), computer software used to encrypt the contents of Digital Versatile Discs (DVDs), and wrote a program called DeCSS that decrypts motion pictures stored on DVDs, thus enabling users to freely copy and distribute the movies. Johansen…
Dodge, Warren & Peters Ins. Serv., Inc. v. Riley, 105 Cal. App. 4th 1414 (2003)
James W. Riley and several of his co-workers were terminated from Dodge, an insurance brokerage firm, after Dodge learned of their intention to obtain copies of documents maintained in Dodge’s files and computer storage media before opening their own competing insurance brokerage. Dodge filed a complaint against Riley, et…
Reeves v. Hanlon, 106 Cal. App. 4th 433 (2003)
Attorney Robert L. Reeves filed a lawsuit against attorneys Daniel P. Hanlon and Colin T. Greene and their law firm, Hanlon & Greene (H&G), after Hanlon and Greene abruptly resigned from their positions with Reeves & Hanlon (R&H) and allegedly persuaded certain R&H employees to join H&G, solicited R&H’s clients, misappropriated trade secrets, destroyed computer…
Cadence Design Sys. v. Avant! Corp., 29 Cal. 4th 215 (2002)
In this case, the California Supreme Court answered the following question of law certified to it from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit: Under the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA), when does a claim for trade secret infringement arise: only once, when the initial misappropriation occurs, or with…
Schlage Lock Co. v. Whyte, 101 Cal. App. 4th 1443 (2002)
J. Douglas Whyte was employed as a vice-president of Schlage where he was responsible for sales to The Home Depot (which alone accounts for 38 percent of Schlage’s sales) and other “big box” retailers such as HomeBase and Lowe’s. Whyte signed a confidentiality agreement to protect Schlage’s proprietary information and agreed to abide…
People v. Farell, 28 Cal. 4th 381 (2002)
On his last day of employment as an electrical engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation, Alejandro Farell printed out confidential design specifications for certain computer chips, which could have been used in designing other technology. The evidence of Farell’s misappropriation was obtained during the execution of a search warrant at his home a few days after his…
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