elected to start a business and compete with their with their ex where in this case it's especially agreed just because that competition began before they even left the women of their employer all the appellant here today once before they even left the inn when while they were still being paid while they were still getting benefits they had actually formed a competing business and were actually directing customers of their employer to their own business and why it's important is of course because it shows that these particular employees and ellie's have unclean hands which certainly goes into the issue of whether or not what we value what and the question there is whether or not the district court construed this dash you correctly when they were addressing the issue of whether or not have defendants had in fact misappropriated trade secrets and if you look at the transcript and there are only four scenes that you find it in are in her opening brief the court seemed to struggle with whether or not methods and processes could in fact be trade secrets in the court consistently went to the question and then tried to compare it to or make it analogous to a doctor or in attorney who might leave a practice and goes director own practice and indicating that you know that's that's just taking my knowledge that i've learned while being at the practice and then starting my own business and i don't disagree with that and i didn't disagree with that at the hearing the point is there are also situations where your employer can develop things that are confidential in nature and trade secret in nature that might be methods and one of the analogous situations like gave him responsive to his doctor analogy was well yes if you're working for a doctor and you that is publicly known and putting it together with with new information and that problem lation will then in fact be a trade secret and we make that mention in one of our preset we don't we don't stand here today in and pretend like we came up with something completely out of the sky news that we've added procedures to that that process that is different than what's being done in the of work and that's why we consider the whole awful ation of fre but again if you might have something that there is some information of a particular process that you find to the public but by changing it or improving it or adding steps to it you in fact still have a trade secret with the saying hey methods or processes you just can't have these as trade secrets under the act as by the fact that the act is expressed in am so we really never got into the issue of whether or not the process itself was in fact free to the court really injunction actually talking about with the court how we might modify that agreement to the satisfaction of both parties so initially the courts have mentioned that they would be we then offered to the defendants and in front of the court that well they can continue to do what they're doing that is search engine optimization as long as they don't do with respect to real estate companies and home based businesses because that is what we of we didn't want to do that because it was too restrictive the point is that during the hearing we were actually talking about different ways that we might be able to modify agreements for non compete were overbroad initially they were two in three years yes correct and but it were large you meant you were willing to limit them down to just one year correct that is correct and the reason for that is because you believe there are overbroad as well but i certainly thought we would have a tougher time for the court to agree that two in three years was going to be not so restrictive certainly no i three year  compete for anywhere in the world would be overbroad correct i would agree with that and certainly if you sure but i think you know kind of in conclusion when you when you look at all the factors what happens once they pass this legislation once they've passed what's the supreme court of the vatican cited some of the cases so it's my but they decided the case that basically they said you couldn't blue pencil these agreements they would have yes good morning may it please the court stan johnson on behalf of the leeds i think initially the key issue is what was before the court at the time the court denied the injunction and what was before the court was really no evidence that indicated that any of these processes that were alleged to be trade secrets were in any way not generally known or not rarely ascertainable which is the standard under the nevada trade secret statute and that's what the court kept talking about the court kept saying well what is a about this process or these processes that make them a trade secret i think it's misleading when the  when the argument is made that the court did not understand that a process could be a trade secret i don't think there's any doubt that the court understood that but what was difficult for the court to grasp  and what the court kept asking about was ok i you have a process why is that process a trade secret not all processes are trade secret in fact the court was trying to use an example which i think is is quite a place of all which is if i am a an attorney and over a period of years i've developed a process like go through when i'm writing a brief or doing other  functions and i do certain things in a certain order and i check certain references i do certain things that's a process but that doesn't mean it's a trade secret if that was to be a trade secret i would have to show why what i'm doing is not generally known and there's nothing about what the plaintiff was alleging that was not generally known or readily ascertain e when we look at what was submitted under exhibit b and c and d it's just general information that using google is using different searches it's using the word generators key phrase generators these are all things that are generally known and and used in the seo industry ask you this just on this up with yes there are theoretically the case law does indicate that that's that's possible but the key to that what happened here is that what happened you know i don't believe it is the key factor i think is that they never demonstrated remember well the court knows if it was their burden to provide evidence sufficient that the court could make a determination whether they were likely to prevail on the  they were not likely to prevail on the merits because they could never identify what made the process a trade secret and that's what the court kept asking about in fact in the  court finds that plaintiff in response highlights the prevalence of keyword selection content writing utilizing keywords website creation certain other as seo techniques and tracking results in the s industry however plaintiff has not demonstrated how any of its processes or technique significantly differ from those generally employed by the ezio industry and so that's the i mean the court was specifically aware of the fact that a process potentially could be a trade secret but what play out for appellant is actually really arguing is they're saying well we have a process therefore it's a trade secret because we say it is and that's what the court kept asking about is ok you have a process but why is it a trade secret and i think that's the key thing there was never any evidence presented that that was the case in fact there was no evidence presented that the defendants had actually misappropriated the trade secrets or were using the trade secrets there was no evidence of that either which would be another factor that they would have to demonstrate in order for the court to grant the plimer injunction the other issue i think is important that the declarations that were submitted were not that there was a use of of this process as a trade secret but they were declarations and they were hearsay nd hand of certain customers who had said well they can use the same sales pitch when they talk to me that's what the declarations talk about they never said oh yeah they took this information they used it with the key phrase generator he were generator and did this and this and this and this which would have demonstrated that they were in some way using this process they didn't even introduce that evidence and so that's why the court ruled the way they did in regards to the likelihood of prevailing on the  i'll just quickly touch on irreparable harm there was also no evidence of irreparable harm if certain clients were taken from the plaintiff they could've indicated which ones amount was lost due to this and that could have been remedied by monetary damages so that was another factor i think that was not proven the other thing we should get into of course i think the court or a brought this up by pointing out that yes if you modify the contractual rights of the parties this is a substantive statute not a procedural statu and that's that's very clear i think in the case we cited which is one that was decided by the nevada district federal district court was pasok ranch versus and twenty and what the court said in its decision is there's nothing in the legislative history or the statute that would indicate retroactivity given the fact that the legislature clearly wanted to overturn the holding and golden rule if they wanted that to apply retroactively they would have said so and so there was an argument on this issue before the nevada key issue is at the time this court looked at the issue what was the law in the law and what was in front of the court was nothing that showed that the statute was retroactive and the court wasn't offering to really blueline the the agreements that never really came up with the court was doing the same look can you guys agree to certain restrictions because in the court's min these restrictions that were in the governments were clearly too broad in on a forcible and so the court was made merely trying to offer a broker some sort of resolution that the parties would agree to but the court never indicated you know i'm going to blueline this agreement pursuant to six hundred and thirteen point one nine five and fact we argue in our supplement that that was waived because the  st time that statute was actually brought up was in the open and very and i think the record clear that the appellant's never said ok judge because of that statute you have the blueline this that never came up so we do also think that that was waived so i guess my time's up but in conclusion i would urge the court to look at what was before a judge may hand at that time which was virtually no evidence presented by the plaintiffs that would allow them to say we're going to prevail we have a likelihood of prevailing on the merits or that six hundred and thirteen point one  should be applied that was never argued and there was no evidence of that before or thank you ok thank you the definition all there is a definition and it's under the about her uniform trade secrets act so that question kind of you know right on this you started making me believe that the court was struggling with this issue and then thing is just with respect to the day hearing in the blue pencil line is that the court when we walked into court and already mentioned right out of the chute to be we're inclined to grant the junction and that they were going to limit it to clark county and that's before any thank you counsel we appreciate your arguments in this case this morning and with that the case is needed at this time