15 October

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Trade Secrets Basics

First Publication Date: 4th February 2008 What is a trade secret? Trade secret is any information that has independent economic value because of not being known to others and for which reasonable measures have been taken to protect it as a secret. A secret is a trade secret only if it has legal sanctity. Terms like 'confidential information', 'proprietary information', 'undisclosed information' and trade secret have the same meaning from legal perspective. What is a reasonable measure? A measure to protect secrecy of information is considered to be reasonable, if it gives notice about the secret nature of the information and has legal sanctity....

05 April

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Proprietary Data, Trade Secrets and Information Security in India – An Integrated Approach

Posted by Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala

in Trade Secrets

The featured image shows a wordle with focus on the word information security. To read more, click here.

"Data has the ability to make or break a company." - Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala In today's information age, Data has emerged as a very important business tool. Among other factors, success of businesses is dependent on possession, management, processing and analysis of data. The relevance of data in business has increased so significantly during the last decade that one report estimates a short supply of close to two hundred thousand (2,00,000) data professionals by the end of 2018 in the United States alone. NASSCOM estimates that India will need about three hundred thousand (3,00,000) data professionals by 2020. A MIT...

05 April

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Trade Secrets and Information Security – Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala’s presentation at CISCO

Posted by BIP Patent Attorneys

in Trade Secrets

The featured image is a screen grab of the first slide of the presentation titled "Trade Secrets and Information Security". This presentation was delivered by Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala at CISCO, Bangalore

The following presentation titled "Trade Secrets and Information Security" was delivered at CISCO, Bangalore by Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala, Chief IP Attorney at BananaIP Counsels. The presentation covers the following topics: Trade Secret Reasonable Measures Secret Information NDAs and Confidentiality Clauses Access Controls, etc. Misappropriation Defenses Example case for trade secret misappropriation Social Media and Information Security Recent Cases involving trade secrets and information security ZeniMax v. Oculus Dalmatia v. FoodMatch Waymo v. Uber Goldman Sachs v. Sergey Aleynikov Doe v. Google You may view and access the full presentation here: [slideshare id=74310114&doc=ciscoapril2017-170404063140] About Dr. Kalyan Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala is currently the Chief IP Attorney...

19 April

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TCS Liable for Trade Secret Misappropriation – Wisconsin Federal Court Grants 940 Million Dollars as Damages

Posted by BananaIP Reporter

in Trade Secrets

The image depicts the text 'Trade Secret' on a piece of paper. The post is about a trade secret misappropriation case. to read more click here.

In a recent judgment, a US Federal Court at Wisconsin held TCS liable for trade secret misappropriation along with other counts, and granted damages to the tune of 940 million dollars, the highest in a trade secret case. TCS has stated that it would appeal the decision, and the value of damages is expected to be reduced substantially. In 2014, Epic Systems sued TCS in the Wisconsin Court for trade secret misappropriation, breach of contract, unfair trade practice, and unjust enrichment among others. Epic Systems hired services of TCS to deploy its medical software at Kaiser Foundation Hospitals. While working at...

09 February

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Trade Secrets and Business Value – A presentation by Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala at the Woxsen School of Business

Posted by BananaIP Reporter

in Trade Secrets

The featured image reads " Trade secrets and business Value". This post contains the presentation delivered by Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala at the Woxsen School of Business. To read more click here.

The following presentation was delivered by Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala, Managing Partner BananaIP Counsels, at the Woxsen School of Business, Hyderabad. The presentation is titled "Trade Secrets and Business Value" and covers the following topics: Overview of Trade Secrets What a Trade Secret means Misappropriation Defenses Examples Patents Vs. Trade Secrets [slideshare id=57945976&doc=woxsen-class6tradesecretsandbusinessvalue-160206061413] About Dr. Kalyan Kankanala Dr. Kalyan C. Kankanala manages the largest new age Intellectual Property Firm, BananaIP Counsels, headquartered at Bangalore, India. In addition to helping clients maximize business value from intellectual assets, Dr. Kalyan also consults for United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), and teaches at premier institutions such as National Law School of India University, Bangalore,...

07 January

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Trade Secrets: Are LinkedIn Connections Trade Secrets?

Posted by BananaIP Reporter

in Intellectual Property, Trade Secrets

This question came up in an Employer-Employee trade secret dispute before a California Court. David Oakes was working in a sales position with a company called Cellular Accessories under an Employment Agreement with a clause to safeguard the company’s trade secrets. As a part of his employment with Cellular Accessories, David established more than nine hundred contacts on LinkedIn and maintained the list on his computer. The list was updated whenever a new contact was made.

On leaving the company, David retained his LinkedIn account, and obviously, its contacts, and started a competing company called Trinitas. Cellular Accessories sued David and his company for breach of post-termination obligations of the employment agreement, and confidential information misappropriation. Among others things, Cellular Accessories claimed that David’s use of the compiled prospective customer list and LinkedIn contacts established during employment were trade secrets of Cellular Accessories and could not be used by him. David argued that LinkedIn contacts were publicly accessible contacts, compiled from public information and could not avail of trade secret protection.

26 August

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Trade Secrets: ‘Trade Secret’ Law is turning out to be a well kept ‘Secret’

Posted by BananaIP Reporter

in Trade Secrets

This image depicts a rusted lock on a gate. This image is relevant because this post talks about the ongoing debate about the Trade Secret law in India. Click on the image to view full post

A recent discussion with a friend made me contemplate the methods companies use to protect a business process. Most companies have processes that help in their smooth daily functioning yielding them their revenue. Since business methods are not patentable in India, there must be a way that these processes can be protected from competitors. Of course there is – Trade Secrets.

A business process forms part of a company’s Confidential Information and can be protected as a Trade Secret. A Trade Secret is any kind of ‘information’ or ‘know-how’ which is not ‘publicly known‘, has ‘commercial advantage’ and which the owner has taken ‘reasonable measures to keep secret’. Largely, many countries recognize these as the normal components for protection of a Trade Secret. In India, unlike in the USA or other countries, there is no specific legislation to protect Trade Secrets.

04 July

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Trade Secrets: Amazon sues ex-Employee for jumping ship to Google

Posted by BananaIP Reporter

in Trade Secrets

This image depicts a stamp of the word confidential. THis image is relevant because this post talks about Amazon suing former employee for breach of Non-Disclosure Agreement. Click on the image to view full post.

Amazon sued its former employee, Mr. Zoltan Szabadi for breaching the Non-Disclosure Agreement and Non-Competition Agreement and starting to work for Google’s Cloud Computing Business. Amazon filed the suit for injunction against Mr. Szabadi on June 27th, 2014 in King County Superior Court in Seattle.

Mr. Szabadi was initially working with Amazon, whom he joined on July 10th, 2008 and went on to work in Amazon’s Cloud Computing Business under the Amazon Web Services, LLC during January, 2010. Ignoring the 18-month restriction imposed by Amazon on its employees from joining its competitors, Mr. Szabadi joined Google during May, 2014 soon after leaving Amazon.

Section 3(c)(iv) of Non-Competition Agreement provides that upon termination of employment with Amazon, Mr. Szabadi was restricted from “directly or indirectly” entering into business with an entity involved in substantially similar business arrangements as Amazon, for a period of 18 months. There was also a restriction of 12 months during which Mr. Szabadi was restricted from working with anyone whom he had previously worked with at Amazon.

01 March

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Patent: Fundamentals of IP and Licensing – A presentation by Dr. Kalyan Kankanala at IIMB

Posted by BananaIP Reporter

in Copyrights, Geographical Indications (GI), Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law, Patents, Trade Secrets, Trademarks

This presentation gives an overview of intellectual property and its various species. It discusses some important types of IP such as patents, copyrights, designs, trademarks, trade secrets and so on, in the light of their relevance to business. Then, the presentation moves onto IP licensing, taking music licensing as an example. The nuances of music licensing are explained during the rest of the presentation. [slideshare id=31794624&doc=funipandlicensing-140301073125-phpapp02] The talk, unfortunately, not a part of this post, is filled with interesting examples and cases, both from courts and experience. This Fun IP presentation has been delivered several times at various forums and we hope...

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