Source: https://cbaclelegalconnection.com/tag/trade-secret/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 03:58:48+00:00

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The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in United States v. Bowers on Friday, February 10, 2017.
Donald Bowers was charged and convicted on two counts of civil contempt in violation of 18 U.S.C § 401(3) for willfully and repeatedly violating a permanent injunction against him stemming from a civil trade secret misappropriation suit. Bowers was sentenced to fifteen months’ incarceration and, following his release, a thirty-six month period of supervised release, during which he would make monthly payments of the remaining amount he owed to the plaintiff in the underlying civil suit. Bowers appealed, claiming that the court erred by imposing payments to the plaintiff in the civil case as part of his supervised release, denying his motion for disclosure of the criminal referral, and sentencing him for a period that exceeded six months.
The underlying civil case did not actually include Bowers himself, but his son Lonny Bowers (Lonny) and the officers of WideBand, who were sued by ClearOne Communications, Inc. for misappropriation of trade secrets. Bowers became involved when he entered into an agreement with the defendants in the case to purchase WideBand’s assets in exchange for money to pay their legal fees. The court issued a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to stop the transfer of assets to Bowers.
In the civil case against WideBand, the jury returned a verdict against the defendants that included compensatory damages against all the defendants, and punitive damages against two of the WideBand officers (not including Lonny). The day after the verdict in the WideBand case, Bowers filed a statement to perfect a security interest in all of WideBand’s assets. When the court ordered Bowers to appear to show why he was not in contempt for violating the existing temporary restraining order, he failed to appear, and the court determined that he was also subject to the existing restraining order as he acted in concert with the defendants in the WideBand case.
After Bowers failed to appear in multiple contempt hearings and again violated the permanent injunction by setting up and operating DialHD, Inc., a company that used the assets of WideBand, the court issued a memorandum decision and civil contempt order against Bowers for violating the permanent injunction, and directed Bowers to self-surrender for incarceration and pay ClearOne’s reasonable attorney fees and costs. Bowers failed to purge himself of the contempt charge, and the court issued a bench warrant for his arrest. The court rejected both of Bowers’ appeals from the civil cases.
The district court entered a civil judgment against Bowers in an amount of $57,188.61 in attorney fees for violating the permanent injunction, an amount of $22,743.88 to pay ClearOne’s costs and fees from the original ClearOne civil case, and $8,648 in appellate attorney fees in connection with his first appeal in the civil case. In relation to the contempt cases against Bowers, the district court judge who presided over the civil case sent a memo regarding the referral of criminal contempt charges for Bowers to the United States Attorney for the District of Utah, outlining the details of the civil case. A federal grand jury returned an indictment against Bowers for willfully disobeying the permanent injunction and civil contempt order, both in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 401(3). A jury found Bowers guilty on both counts.
Bowers was sentenced to fifteen months’ imprisonment, followed by a term of three years supervised release, during which he would make monthly payments to ClearOne. On appeal, Bowers argued that the district court abused its discretion by ordering him to make monthly payments to ClearOne, denying his motion to compel the government to disclose the criminal referral, and argued that his sentence is illegal because 18 U.S.C. § 402 limits sentences like those Bowers committed to no more than six months.
As to his first contention regarding the imposition of payments as a condition of his supervised release, the court stated that district court has broad discretion to impose special conditions of supervised release, stating that the conditions must only (1) be reasonably related to the nature and history of the defendant’s offense, the deterrence of criminal conduct, the protection of the public from the defendant’s crimes, or the defendant’s educational and other correctional needs; (2) involve no deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary; and (3) be consistent with pertinent policy statements issued by the Sentencing Commission. The court rejected Bowers’ argument, stating that the special condition in this case satisfies all of the requisite elements.
Bowers’ second argument on appeal, that the district court erred in denying his motion to discover the criminal referral, was also rejected by the court, as the information in the referral did not contain oral or written statements or other evidence that would render it discoverable under Fed. R. Civ. P. 16. Finally, the court also rejected Bowers’ argument that a sentence of fifteen months for his crimes was illegal under § 402, as he did not raise it at the district court level and therefore waived his right to assert the argument at the appellate level. The court added, however, that even if Bowers had not waived the argument, he still would not be entitled to relief because he was not charged under §402, but under § 401, which does not impose a maximum punishment.
The Colorado Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Active Release Techniques, LLC v. Xtomic, LLC on Thursday, February 9, 2017.
Active Release Techniques (ART) is a provider of training, seminars, and business support software for chiropractors and other health care providers. ART contracted with Xtomic to manage ART’s IT services and provide support. When one of ART’s employees started a new business, Select Seminar Services, LLC (S3), with a co-owner of Xtomic, ART petitioned for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. It also initiated the current litigation, asserting claims for misappropriation of trade secrets. Xtomic responded by asserting numerous counterclaims, including a claim for abuse of process. A jury ultimately decided all claims in Xtomic’s favor.
ART appealed, arguing the trial court erred by denying its motion for a directed verdict on Xtomic’s abuse of process claim. The court of appeals noted that “a valid abuse of process claim must allege ‘(1) an ulterior purpose for the use of a judicial proceeding; (2) willful action in the use of that process which is not proper in the regular course of the proceedings, i.e., use of a legal proceeding in an improper manner; and (3) resulting damage.'” In this case, ART moved for a directed verdict on the abuse of process claim at the close of evidence on the counterclaims. Xtomic argued that ART knew from the outset that it had no legitimate claims against Xtomic and the overly aggressive manner in which it pursued its claims against Xtomic was evidence of ART’s ulterior motive to use the lawsuit as a means to harass Xtomic and run it out of business. In denying ART’s motion for directed verdict, the court relied on ART’s pretrial settlement with Xtomic, ART’s reputation for filing lawsuits to control the behavior of former 5 associates and business partners, and the nature and number of preservation letters that ART sent to numerous individuals.
The court of appeals disagreed with the trial court that the settlement could be evidence of ART’s willful misuse of judicial process, because settlement does not imply that the originally filed suit was improper. The court also disregarded the evidence of ART’s other lawsuits, finding that it was only proper to focus on the instant case. Finally, the court found that the preservation letters were not directly related to any litigation but rather were issued in response to ART’s concern that Xtomic was destroying emails.
The court of appeals denied Xtomic’s motion for appellate attorney fees, since it was not the prevailing party. The court reversed the trial court’s denial of ART’s motion for directed verdict and remanded.
The Colorado Supreme Court issued its opinion in In re Rumnock v. Anschutz on Monday, December 5, 2016.
Pretrial Procedure—Protective Orders—Trade Secrets—Commercial Information.
The Colorado Supreme Court discharged its rule to show cause and affirmed the trial court’s partial denial of defendant American Family Mutual Insurance Company’s request for a protective order to restrict plaintiff’s use of alleged trade secrets. The court held that American Family failed to meet its burden to show that the documents were in fact trade secrets or other confidential commercial information.
The Colorado Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Hawg Tools, LLC v. Newsco International Energy Services, Inc. on Thursday, December 1, 2016.
Hawg Tools, LLC (Hawg) rents mud motors to oil and gas drilling companies. Newsco International Energy Services, Inc. (Newsco) uses mud motors to provide drilling services. Gallagher owned Hawg. Before he formed this company, he operated a similar business called New Venture. In 2008 Gallagher asked a machinist to manufacture sealed bearing packs for use in New Venture’s mud motors. The machinist arranged for a designer, defendant Ficken, to design the sealed bearing packs for the machinist as a favor. The designer assigned his rights in the design to the machinist, who assigned them to Gallagher for compensation. Gallagher later assigned the rights to Hawg. The designer later designed a sealing bearing pack for Newsco. After determining that the Newsco design was similar to the Hawg design, Gallagher filed this lawsuit alleging (1) misappropriation of a trade secret concerning the design of a sealed bearing pack, (2) conversion of a trade secret, and (3) breach of contract. The trial court entered judgment in favor of plaintiff. The trial court denied defendants motions for directed verdict and judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
On appeal, defendants contended that the trial court erred when it denied their motions for directed verdict and judgment notwithstanding the verdict on Hawg’s claim for misappropriation of a trade secret. C.R.S. § 7-74-102(4) defines a trade secret as “the whole or any portion . . . of any . . . design . . . which is secret and of value.” To determine whether a trade secret exists, the fact finder considers (among other thing) the extent to which the information is known outside the business. Here, Hawg did not establish that its design, in whole or in part, was substantially different from designs that were publicly available at the time of its creation. The court of appeals concluded that (1) the record does not support a conclusion that the Hawg design was secret and (2) the record does not contain sufficient evidence to support the trial court’s decision to deny defendants’ motions for a directed verdict and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
Defendants also contended that the trial court erred when it denied their motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict on Hawg’s conversion claim, asserting that the Uniform Trade Secrets Act preempts claims for conversion of trade secrets. This was a preemption defense based on choice of law, which defendants waived because they raised it for the first time in their motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
Ficken appealed the judgment against him on Hawg’s breach of contract claim, contending that the trial court erred when it rejected his assertion that Hawg lacks standing to bring suit against him for breach of contract based on his violation of a confidentiality agreement. Here, the designer and the machinist entered into an assignment agreement with Gallagher. Later, Gallagher fully assigned his rights under this agreement to Hawg. Therefore, Hawg had standing to bring suit for breach of that agreement.
The judgment on Hawg’s claim for misappropriation of a trade secret was reversed and the case was remanded for the trial court to enter judgment in favor of defendants on that claim and to vacate the award of damages on that claim. The judgment on Hawg’s claims for conversion and breach of contract were affirmed.
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals published its opinion in Storagecraft Technology Corporation v. Kirby on Tuesday, March 11, 2014.
James Kirby said the jury’s award against him was too much. True, he helped start and served as a director of StorageCraft, a computer software company. True, after a falling out with his colleagues he stole the computer source code on which the company’s products depended. True, he shared the source code with NetJapan, a rival company that quickly produced a competing software product much like StorageCraft’s. But he said the jury’s $2.92 million trade secret misappropriation award was still too much. Too much, Mr. Kirby said, because he never used the secret for his own personal profit. And too much because StorageCraft never sought to prove at trial that NetJapan made commercial use of its trade secret. Maybe he was angry about how his former colleagues had treated him, maybe he disclosed the trade secret to a rival out of vengeance. But without firmer proof that someone profited from his misdeed, Mr. Kirby insisted the jury’s verdict should be overturned.
The trouble was, Utah law doesn’t distinguish between a misappropriator’s motives. When someone steals a trade secret and discloses it to a competitor, he effectively assumes for himself an unrestricted license in the trade secret. And that bears its costs. After all, what value does a trade secret hold when it’s no longer a secret from the trade? The misappropriator may act with a wish to line his pockets or satisfy a vendetta or for some other purpose still. All the same, Utah’s trade secret statute holds him to account for the full value of the license he arrogated to himself. Just as the district court held.
Utah’s trade secret statute, Utah’s Uniform Trade Secrets Act, Utah Code Ann. § 13-24-4(1), the law governing Mr. Kirby’s case, expressly allows a reasonable royalty measure of damages when the misappropriator uses or discloses the trade secret. And no one disputed that Mr. Kirby did at least that — disclosed the secret to NetJapan. Nothing in the state’s trade secret statute categorically restricts the availability of reasonable royalty damages to cases in which the misappropriator used a trade secret commercially rather than disclosed it to others.
Mr. Kirby still argued the jury’s award was unreasonable based on the facts. The court stated it is important when setting a reasonable royalty award to account for the scope of the license the defendant assumed for himself, to aim at a price that reflects the particular use of the trade secret made by the defendant. While a defendant in Utah can’t avoid reasonable royalty damages because he disclosed the trade secret to others without anyone making commercial use of it, the amount of reasonable royalty damages he must pay depends on what he did with the secret — what uses he made of it. Even acknowledging all this, however, did nothing to help Mr. Kirby. His problem lied in the record. The evidence at trial showed that Mr. Kirby took StorageCraft’s trade secret and intentionally disclosed it to NetJapan, aware that NetJapan was an able competitor, and aware that NetJapan could well use the secret to compete with StorageCraft.

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