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Defensive publication is a patent strategy that...

Imagine this: A consultant starts a competing company after taking your proprietary information while under a confidentiality agreement. You promptly file a trade secret misappropriation claim, but can you prove that what he took was a “trade secret”? If not, you could be out of luck, and potentially liable to pay the consultant!

Federal DTSA and Massachusetts UTSA do not clearly define what “willful and malicious” means. Recent litigation in Massachusetts took great steps towards clarifying this issue. KPM Analtics North America sued Blue Sun Scientific, Innovative Technologies Group, and four former employees for trade secret misappropriation under both DTSA and MUTSA.

A recent federal court ruling awarded over $10 million in damages to KPM Analytics, a scientific instrumentation company serving the food and agriculture sectors, in a landmark trade secret misappropriation case. The verdict reinforces the value of protecting intellectual property in industries where technical innovation moves fast and competitive advantages can be lost overnight.

Tangibly, the leading trade secret management platform, proudly announces the launch of Trade Secret 2025 (TS25)—a cutting-edge digital resource designed to revolutionize trade secret knowledge sharing. TS25 combines the latest expertise from academia, legal practice, and business in an intuitive, AI-driven platform powered by a proprietary Large Language Model (LLM) to empower organizations with actionable insights and guidance.

Palantir has filed a trade secret lawsuit against Guardian AI, a healthcare-focused AI startup launched by two of its former employees, in what is shaping up to be one of the most high profile IP disputes of 2025. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and alleges brazen theft of trade secrets used to build and launch Guardian AI while the founders were still employed at Palantir.

Rippling sued their arch-competitor Deel in the Northern District Court of California on March 17, 2025. Rippling claims that Deel used a “mole” within Rippling to obtain valuable confidential information.

Artificial intelligence presents both opportunities and risks for businesses. While it drives innovation and efficiency, it also creates vulnerabilities for intellectual property. Companies invest heavily in proprietary technologies, designs, and processes, only to find that AI systems can expose or replicate these assets. Protecting IP in the AI era requires a proactive strategy that combines legal protections, strict oversight, and employee awareness to prevent AI from becoming a liability.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed the way we create, innovate, and safeguard ideas, but it also introduces intricate questions around intellectual property (IP). The storage and processing of user input by AI models is a central concern. Information uploaded to an AI system, such as text, images, or other data, often becomes incorporated into the model’s memory, either temporarily or permanently. This blurring of lines between user contribution and machine learning challenges traditional IP frameworks. For example, determining ownership rights in AI-generated music based on user input becomes complex. As AI systems advance, legal systems globally are grappling to define ownership and protect creators within this evolving landscape.

This case is another reminder that trade secret risks often stem from inside your own organization. The Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) sued Westrock Coffee and six former DFA employees (who left to join Westrock) in the Western District of Missouri, alleging typical DTSA, MTSA, civil conspiracy, breach of contract, breach of duty of loyalty violations.

There’s a lot of discussion about American...

The Chinese DeepSeek R1 and Janus open-source models are certainly all the AI rage this week. The R1 model was built for a cost of about 5% of what its competitors normally spend and promises lower price for AI adoption. Let’s take a look at DeepSeek from a few different perspectives.

We at Tangibly prefer reading trade secret cases over patent cases.  Trade secrets usually involve a lot of drama – ex-employees taking crown jewels to a competitor, M&A buyers taking the due diligence information and starting their own competing business, and so on.  It’s usually an entertaining story with a clear “good guy” and “bad guy.”

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) due diligence always involves the sharing of confidential information and trade secrets. There’s almost always a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) but it typically just has a single vague sentence like “explore potential business relationships between Company A and Company B”.

Trade secrets are most often taken by an (ex)employee to a competing company or the employee sets up their own competing business.  This theft is, of course, not authorized. But let’s look at the competing company – they basically get a gift from Santa…

If DTSA is so fantastic, why do we still see some trade secret cases argued at state courts instead of federal?  Great question!

Determining how long a patent lasts is easy – 20 years from the first non-provisional priority date plus any extensions and adjustments (assuming payment of all maintenance fees).

It can be confusing to distinguish between confidential information and trade secrets – they’re different but some people incorrectly use the terms interchangeably. All trade secrets are confidential information, but not all confidential information are trade secrets. It’s like trade secrets are an elevated subset of confidential information.

It is a great idea to understand what your trade secrets are and document them. If you don’t define trade secret assets, it is difficult to know when they have been stolen, and it is increasingly difficult or even impossible to enforce your rights against people who steal them under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act.

Ah, the sweet smell of trade secrets in perfumes… Every company in the world has trade secrets whether they know (or smell?) it or not.

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In this podcast episode hosted by IP Business Academy, we delve into the often misunderstood world of trade secrets with IP expert Chris Bundle. Discover why trade secrets are more than just confidential information and the complexities involved in their management. Chris explains the misconception that trade secrets are “free” and highlights the proactive efforts required to protect them effectively. Unlike patents or trademarks, trade secrets don’t have a formal registration process, leading to common misunderstandings about their management and costs. Tune in to learn about the importance of robust internal policies, employee training, and security measures in safeguarding valuable business information. This episode is a must-listen for anyone involved in intellectual property management.

An employee left the Alifax company to join competitor Alcor. Alifax makes clinical instruments for performing blood analysis. Within a year (very quick!), Alcor released a competing instrument with the same functionality as Alifax’s product.

In a widely reported recent case, a Seattle jury found Boeing liable to startup Zunum Aero for $72 million over theft of trade secrets relating to small passenger jets having hybrid electric energy sources.

We often meet people who are concerned that any list or catalog of trade secrets might be incomplete and not contain “the one” valuable trade secret that is critical for litigation. These people often suggest that doing “nothing” is better than imperfectly doing “something”. This is driven out of fear that a defendant in a trade secret lawsuit could argue that since “the one” was not in the catalog or list, it is therefore not a trade secret.