The California Uniform Trade Secrets Act (Civil Code section 3426) protects business trade secrets. A trade secret can be customer/client lists and customer information, preferences and identities if they are not generally known to the public and you have taken reasonable steps to protect them. Trade secrets can also be other information that is not generally known to the public and for which you have undertaken reasonable efforts to keep secret. Unfair competition lawsuits can be based on trade secret misappropriation, contracts and interference with contracts, breach of other legal duty by a departing employee, and California Business and Professions code section 17200.
California employers, did you know your employees owe you a duty of loyalty? In California, there is not much you can do to prevent your employee from leaving to work for your competitor. But while they are employed, they owe you a duty of loyalty and once they leave they cannot use your trade secrets to compete against you.
A recent …
We live in a great country and a great state. Both are built on a free market economy based on supply and demand. This valued and fundamental policy of “free market” is built into California law. Therefore, any agreement by which “anyone is restrained from engaging in any lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind” …
Continue Reading »The law of trade secrets has broader application than to employee relations. But the problem often arises in the employment setting, usually when a departing employee feels they can take your “secret sauce,” steal your clients and start a competing business with impunity.
Trade secrets are a key employer right. If a business has …
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