Does Your Company Have a Trade Secret Protection Program?
A few days ago, I wrote about the dismissal of Charter Oak Lending's lawsuit against a larger rival for alleged misappropriation of proprietary information and other claims. The outcome of Charter Oak's lawsuit demonstrates the perils of trade secrets litigation.
With that case in mind, I want to share an end-of-the-year post from Nancy Geenen, one of the authors of Foley & Lardner LLP's Trade Secret/Noncompete Blog, which explains why a company needs a trade secret protection program and how to implement one. I would add that even if a company doesn't have trade secrets, which Nancy defines as "formulas, devices, methods, techniques, or processes," more than likely it has information that it wants and needs to keep confidential, such as clients' or customers' names, operating agreements, financial records, etc., which could be included in such a program.
By the way, Nancy is also the author of an article I discussed last week about the need for your engagement letter to accurately describe the scope of your representation.
