Trade Secrets

Perkins Coie attorneys across multiple practice groups work closely with clients across diverse industries to provide trade secret counseling and litigation services. Our attorneys frequently counsel clients on best practices for protecting trade secrets and preventing claims of trade secret theft by others. When necessary, our attorneys enforce clients' trade secret rights in litigation, as well as defend clients against claims of trade secret theft.

Business transactions: Our Business attorneys are highly skilled in providing practical and effective advice to clients on trade secret issues in business transactions. They frequently assist clients with identifying and defining trade secrets in connection with business transactions, negotiating trade secret licenses and other transfers and establishing measures and programs for protecting trade secrets and other confidential information.

Employment matters: We also have substantial experience dealing with trade secrets in the employment context. Our Labor attorneys counsel clients on, and help them prepare, employment agreements involving trade secrets and other intellectual property, confidentiality agreements, non-compete agreements and internal trade secret protection procedures. Where effective, our Labor attorneys partner with our Intellectual Property attorneys to form industry or technology focused teams for a client’s specific needs.  

Litigation: We have a deep bench of attorneys with significant litigation and trial experience in trade secret matters. Our attorneys have handled trade secret disputes for a diverse client base involving a wide variety of technologies. We are often called upon to pursue or defend against motions for temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions and have been successful in these proceedings. With litigators in all of our U.S. offices, we have handled cases in federal and state courts across the country.

Some recent examples follow:

• In Boeing Co. v. Sierracin, King County Superior Court (Washington), we successfully represented Boeing at trial and on appeal in one of the most widely cited trade secret cases in the state. The case included antitrust counterclaims involving aircraft spare parts sales. The jury verdict for Boeing on trade secret claims was upheld on appeal, and the antitrust verdict against Boeing was reversed on appeal. 
  
  
• Our attorneys recently went to trial by jury in federal district court to defend a client against claims for trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract. The case involved radio frequency identification (RFID) race timing systems. We obtained a favorable post-trial settlement for the client that disposed not only of the instant case but also of a related case involving other parties.
  
  
• We are representing a semiconductor company in a significant trade secret case arising from employment of two engineers. 
  
  
• One of our attorneys prevailed at trial in defending a client’s software patent against claims of inequitable conduct and prosecution history estoppel in what the trial court judge described as her “most difficult civil case” in 16 years on the bench.  The facts in the case involved raiding of an information technology department and data warehousing issues.