Intellectual Property
The most valuable asset of a company or business is often its intellectual property. In our legal system, intellectual property or “IP” is an umbrella word for legal rights or entitlements which attach to certain names, written materials (such as books, poems, and song lyrics), artistic materials (such as drawings and paintings), recorded media (such as movies and songs), and inventions.
The law grants holders of these legal entitlements (such as authors, inventors, artists, and other IP holders) various exclusive rights as against the rest of the world in relation to the particular form or manner in which the ideas or information are expressed or manifested. The term reflects the fact that the protected material is the creation of someone’s mind or intelligence.
IP law essentially treats the creation or intellectual work as property, and the owner of the rights to that property may prevent others from using it without having the owner’s permission (often through a license agreement), or paying the owner compensation for using it (whether through a royalty or otherwise).
There are many kinds of intellectual property. The most common ones include the following:
- A copyright protects creative and artistic works (such as books, movies, music, paintings, photographs, and software) and gives a copyright holder the exclusive right to control reproduction or adaptation of such works for a certain period of years determined by the relevant law.
- A patent protects a new, useful, and non-obvious invention, and gives the patent holder a right to prevent others from practicing the invention without a license from the inventor for a certain period of years.
- A trademark is a distinctive sign used to distinguish the products or services of different businesses.
- Trade dress refers to the distinctive packaging, appearance, color, style, design, or even smell of a product, which distinctive features promote that product and distinguish it from other products in the marketplace. Trade dress might include, for example, the color and appearance of screwdriver handles, the unique shape of a liqueur bottle, or the specialized design or color of a tennis racquet or golf club. Courts protect trade dress under trademark law if the owner can show that the average consumer would likely be confused about the product’s origin if another product were allowed to appear in similar “dress.”
- A trade secret is a formula, pattern, physical device, idea, process, compilation of information, or other information that 1) provides a business with a competitive advantage, and 2) is treated in a way that can reasonably be expected to prevent the public or competitors from learning about it unless they improperly acquire or steal it. Trade secrets may include such things as the formula for a soft drink or the client or customer lists of a bank, brokerage house, or company.
Our Experience
At Choquette & Simons LLP, we have substantial experience helping clients protect trade secrets from misappropriation or theft. In particular, we have helped companies, banks, and brokerage houses to prevent a departed employee from misusing his or her previous employer’s customer lists and customer data to take business or clients from the former business to the new one. We have also helped companies prevent departed employees from using their specialized methods and formulas to help another employer or business gain competitive advantage. And we have helped companies seek legal relief when a licensee of computer software improperly copies, or pirates, the licensed software to create and sell a supposedly new, competing software product.
When such potentially catastrophic trade secret misappropriations or thefts occur, the client often needs lawyers who can very quickly go into court to seek a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) or a preliminary injunction against the prior employee or licensee, or even against the new employer or product distributor, to bring an immediate halt to the misappropriation or wrongful use pending a full trial of the dispute. We are well-experienced with these rapid-response actions, and have helped numerous clients obtain such relief in court. At the trial, the injured party may seek a permanent injunction against the misappropriation or wrongful use, and we have helped clients secure this relief as well. We have also helped clients to determine the value of the lost rights and revenues and recover an award of the damages against the party who has committed the misappropriation or wrongful use.
We are also available to defend companies and individuals against claims of trade secret misappropriation or theft, and to resist opposing parties’ requests for temporary, preliminary, or permanent injunctive relief and damages.
If you would like to discuss a trade secret misappropriation or other IP claim with us, click here.
