We have been retained as an expert witness in more than fifteen different software trade secret cases. We have worked on matters related to financial services, real estate, e-commerce, telecommunications, retailing, distribution, and other industries.
Our role in trade secrets litigation has varied depending on client needs. We have, for example, assisted plaintiff’s counsel in the identification of trade secrets with reasonable particularity, with discovery requests, and in preparing questions for depositions of fact witnesses and experts retained by opposing counsel.
Several of our cases have involved assisting counsel in litigation that seeks to block employees without non-compete agreements from working at other companies where disclosure of trade secrets and other confidential and proprietary information may be unavoidable. Additionally, we have worked on several cases involving alleged misappropriation of trade secrets by partners of software companies.
An important focus of our work is analyzing actions of the parties relative to industry customs and practices. This includes, for example, assessment of reasonable measures undertaken by the plaintiff to protect trade secrets. Dr. Kursh has researched and published three articles on this topic, including an article in les Nouvelles, Journal of the Licensing Executives Society International. He also recently participated in the PLI panel discussion, “Developing and Protecting Trade Secrets.”
Representative Expert Witness Engagements
- We were retained by counsel for the plaintiff, a publicly-traded, e-commerce company, regarding trade secrets and other confidential and proprietary information misappropriated by the defendant, a publicly-traded company that was previously in a partnership with the plaintiff.
- Our work analyzed the measures the plaintiff took to protect its trade secrets to determine whether such measures were reasonable; whether the defendant followed customs and practices in its relationship with the plaintiff, including accessing and using the plaintiff’s confidential and proprietary information; and the technical benefits the defendant misappropriated. We also assisted the damages experts in their analysis of the economic damages.
- We were retained by counsel for the defendant, a telecommunications billing software company, in a trade secret matter. We analyzed the “how-to” in the relevant software and compared the respective software programs and development practices to determine whether there had been misappropriation and whether the defendant benefitted from a headstart.
- We were retained by counsel for the plaintiff on behalf of one of the world’s largest investment management companies in a trade secret case relating to the development of technologies used in securities trading and risk management.
- We were retained by counsel for the plaintiff, a developer of e-commerce software for the health care industry, in a copyright and trade secret case.
- We were retained by counsel for the defendant, a publicly-traded software company that sells on-premise licenses and SaaS subscriptions for software used in e-commerce, in a trade secret case.
- We were retained by counsel for the plaintiff, one of the world’s largest real estate-focused software companies, in a trade secret case.
- We were retained by counsel for the plaintiff, a software company focused on the multi-family real estate market, in a trade secret case.
- We were retained by counsel for the defendant, one of the world’s largest distributors of computers and electronic equipment, in a trade secret case related to an application used to support sales and marketing.
- We were retained by counsel for the plaintiff, the developer of a payments-guarantee platform used in e-commerce, in a trade secret case.