Covenants Not to Compete and Trade Secrets: Protecting Against Unfair Competition

Learn to protect your clients' trade secrets and get practical tips for using restrictive covenants and trade secret agreements.

This program provides both an overview and specific principles of law regarding the protection against unfair competition through restrictive covenants and trade secret safeguards - two of the fastest-growing areas of intellectual property law outside of traditional patent, copyright, and trademark concerns. Topics covered include multiple aspects of protecting confidential business information, customer bases, and other competitive business interests through covenants not to compete, nonsolicitation agreements, and confidentiality agreements; multistate drafting and enforcement concerns; the blue-penciling doctrine and severability; trade secret identification and misappropriation under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, the Defend Trade Secrets Act and the common law; the inevitable disclosure doctrine, developing a trade secret protection program; recent legal developments; best practices with departing employees; and much more. This material will also address client counseling strategies and provide numerous tips when applying legal principles to practical situations often encountered with trade secrets and restrictive covenant issues, primarily in the employer-employee context.

Faculty

Kenneth P. Carlson, Jr.

Constangy Brooks, Smith & Prophete LLP