Trade Secrets Case Watch

The court held that the statute of limitations began to run from the date when a former employee produced confidential company financial during discovery in an unrelated matter, and not from the earlier date when the former employee had copied and taken the files, because defendants had not failed to exercise reasonable diligence to uncover the alleged misappropriation.

This case is an important reminder that in trade secrets litigation, the specific business context is critically important and may be outcome determinative. Here, a closely held business was held to a much more lenient standard than most courts would have applied to a larger company

On July 1, the Florida Contracts Honoring Opportunity, Investment, Confidentiality, and Economic Growth (CHOICE) Act took effect, positioning Florida as one of, if not the most, employer-friendly states in noncompete and garden leave agreement enforcement.