2012 California Year in Review: What You Need to Know About the Recent Developments in Trade Secret, Non-Compete, and Computer Fraud Law

In Seyfarth’s final installment of its 2012 Trade Secret Webinar series, Seyfarth attorneys will review noteworthy California cases and other legal developments in the increasingly hot areas of trade secret protection, the preemptive effect of the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act, California’s hostility to non-competition and non-solicitation agreements, the continued erosion of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act as a tool for California employers to curb data theft, and social media’s influence on how organizations identify and protect confidential information.  The Seyfarth panel will specifically address the following topics:

• The several reasons that trade secret law remains hot in California
   
• The continued influence of trade secret preemption and how it shapes the ways those doing business in California identify and protect their confidential and proprietary information
   
• How California’s prohibition against non-compete agreements continues to gain steam, including potential strategies for protecting proprietary information given the realities of California’s increasingly highly mobile workforce
   
• The continued erosion of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act as a tool for California employers to curb data theft, including potential strategies for protecting proprietary information stored on computer systems
   
• How the  rise of social media and the National Labor Relation Board’s increased scrutiny of employer social media policies further raises the importance of identifying and protecting trade secrets and highlights the open question of whether California employers properly may restrict by policy and/or contract employees’ disclosure and use of confidential information that does not rise to the level of trade secret
   
• California’s new social media law, AB 1844, and other California-specific limitations on employers’ abilities to regulate and discipline employees concerning their use of social media

The panel will address, among others, the following 2012 cases: PhoneDog, LLC v. Kravitz; FormFactor, Inc. v. Micro-Probe, Inc.; Wanke, Industrial, Commercial, Residential, Inc. v. Sup. Ct.; Fillpoint, LLC v. Maas; Zynga, Inc. v. Kixeye, Inc.; and United States v. Nosal.