In August, a federal judge ruled that cable giant, Cox Communications, must pay $25 million to BMG, a music rights company. BMG utilized a company known as Rightscorp to monitor the Internet for illegal file-sharing activity and then provide a notice to Internet providers when it found evidence of any such activity. Rightscorp’s intended to [..]
One of the most important ways you can protect your trade secrets is to have your employees sign confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements. It is important to make it clear to your employees what their obligations are with respect to protecting the company’s trade secrets and confidential information. You should confer with a local business attorney [..]
If your company wants to protect its trade secrets, it is essential to properly document them in either paper or electronic form. This process is important because it can provide evidence that your business viewed and treated the information as secrets. Documentation shows you identified your trade secrets and treated them as proprietary and secret [..]
Most business owners are aware that it is important to protect their company’s trade secrets, but they aren’t sure what trade secrets they actually have that need protection. Below are examples of items that could be trade secrets: Engineering information, methods or processes Computer programs Financial information Customer or vendor lists Budgets and methods used [..]
Most people associate the theft of trade secrets with large companies. However, all businesses are potential targets, regardless of their size. Trade secrets can include scientific processes, specialized recipes, formulas, customer lists, pricing methods, and any other form of valuable proprietary information that is not generally known to the public. Below are a few steps [..]
Trade secrets can include a wide variety of types of information, but in short, they are anything that is valuable because it is a secret. It is essential that a business protect trade secrets by taking reasonable steps to keep the proprietary information a secret and not made public. There are differing degrees of what [..]
The U.S. Supreme Court is considering a case, Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands, that asks whether a cheerleader’s uniform is copyrightable. More specifically, the court must determine where the functional design of a uniform ends and the creative design begins. In other words, are clothing designs eligible to be protected by copyrights? Varsity Brands, one [..]
Copyrights are used to protect a variety of works. By obtaining a copyright, the individual who created the literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic piece is granted exclusive rights to it. This type of protection is afforded to both published and unpublished works. Copyrights apply to works that are more than just a person’s idea. To [..]
According to the Wall Street Journal, New York’s highest court is considering a copyright dispute between SiriusXM Radio and Flo & Eddie, Inc., the owner of The Turtles’ 1967 hit song Happy Together, as well as It Ain’t Me Babe and She’d Rather Be With Me. The case before the New York Court of Appeals [..]
