Trade Identity
Seventh Circuit
Gabbanelli Accordians & Imports, LLC v. Ditta Gabbanelli Ubaldo Di Elio Gabbanelli
2008-1569
USDC ND Illinois
Judge Richard A. Posner – What are the effects of a judgment handed down by an Italian court of law and of an Italian defendant’s failure in a concurrent Lanham Act suit to timely respond to discovery requests for admissions, and were statutory damages awarded in the Lanham Act case at the amount of $500 per accordian sold by the Italian party within the United States proper, where the parties each trade with the surname mark GABBANELLI for accordians and they had previously entered into a binding arbitration agreement which they both quickly jettisoned?
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Trade Secrets
Third Circuit
Thomas & Betts Corp. v. Richards Manufacturing Co.
2008-3117, -3269
USDC New Jersey
Did the district court err in fashioning New Jersey trade secrets misappropriation jurisprudence by its decision to apply Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. Ciavatta, 110 N.J. 609 (1988), which examined the propriety of a species of post-employment restrictive covenants, instead of Lamorte Burns & Co. v. Walters, 167 N.J. 285 (2001), which dealt with the tort of misappropriation of confidential information, as well as New Jersey’s body of common law concerning an employee’s duty to maintain the secrecy of an employer’s proprietary information, on motion for summary judgment where an employee accused of misappropriating confidential information had served as director of engineering under a restrictive covenant not to divulge such information to third parties, the employer had been sole supplier to a large customer for twenty years, eighteen months after the employee departed to a competitor the competitor sold its competing products to the customer, and the employee was found to have retained hardcopies of the former employer’s confidential financial reports, customer lists, sales charts, product specifications, standard operating procedures and technical drawings?
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Trade Secrets
Eleventh Circuit
Proudfoot Consulting Co. v. Gordon
2008-14075
USDC SD Florida
Under Fla. Stat. § 542.335, had the district court erred by granting an employer its requested $1,659,000 in compensatory damages as well as $335,050.55 in attorney fees and costs, and by enjoining the accused former employee from working with a competitor for six months and from possessing, using or disclosing the employer’s confidential information forever, where the employee had lied about his desire to work for the competitor when asked, the employee had accepted a promotion pursuant to restrictive covenants which expressly required the employee to never divulge the employer’s confidential information to third parties, the employee “unintentionally” retained hardcopies of the employer’s confidential training materials, employee lists, client data and employee newsletter after departing the employer and accepting employment with the competitor, and the employee had been exposed to the employer’s knowledge management database, inside pricing information and operations data?
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