Trade Secrets Archives

Intellectual Property: Caring is Not Sharing

Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains, which makes engines for the Mercedes Petronas team has formally filed a lawsuit against one of its Formula One engineers Benjamin Hoyle, for disclosing confidential documents to a competitor. Hoyle joined in 2012 as one of the 4 Performance Application team leaders in the company and was set to leave at the end of 2015 and intended to join Ferrari after his contract. The suit alleges that he searched and saved files including a race…

December 11, 2015 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property 0Comment 737Views 0Like

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Social Media and IP (Part X): Trade Secret Cases

Christou v. Beatport Christou owned night clubs, and Bradley was his employee. Bradley's primary role was to find good DJs and organize events at Christou's night clubs. By virtue of his role, Bradley had access to the MySpace account of Christou's night club group. While working with Christou, Bradley founded Beatport and later left his job. Subsequently, Bradley started a competing night club after a few days. Aggrieved by his actions, Christou sued for trade secret misappropriation among other grounds.…

November 20, 2015 BananaIP Reporter Social Media Law 0Comment 751Views 0Like

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Importance of IP For Start-ups and Entrepreneurs(Part IX): IP Risk Clearance Checklist

Clearing IP Risks is very important before starting a business. A mistake with respect to this can kill a start-up. Some basic IP clearance steps to be taken by all start-ups and entrepreneurs are: Patent Risk Clearance Check if your business idea is the subject of any IP/Patent protection by another person or entity. Perform a patent search to check if any patents cover any aspect of your business. If your business or technology falls within…

August 29, 2015 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, IP for Start Ups 0Comment 811Views 0Like

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IP, Patents for Start-ups and Entrepreneurs III – Patents -

IP, Patents for Start-ups and Entrepreneurs IV – Trade Secrets and Confidential Information

Confidential Information is any information that has business or economic value because it is not known to others, and for which, appropriate measures are taken to protect secrecy. It can be any sort of information that fits into the said requirements. Business information, financial information, technical information, scientific information, plans, methods, client lists, designs, and any other such information that has economic value is protectable as confidential information, or trade secret. Protection of trade secrets and confidential information of a…

August 24, 2015 BananaIP Reporter Intellectual Property, IP for Start Ups, Trade Secrets 0Comment 766Views 0Like

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Burger King and McDonald’s: Can Taste be Patented?

Here is the next post in the series of Student Blog Contest. This post is authored by Neerja Gurnani. I recently went to the Burger King outlet that has been causing immense amounts of hype in Indian teenagers, stood in queue, got a burger, and eagerly bit into it, expecting my mind to be blown. Instead, I was greeted with a very familiar taste – that of a McDonald’s burger. This led me to ask, can taste be patented? Recipes…