Tag Archives: non-compete

Rhode Island is the latest state to jump on the bandwagon of limiting the application of non-compete agreements, with its Rhode Island Noncompetition Agreement Act (the “Act”).  See these links for our prior posts explaining the previous six non-compete statues enacted in 2019:  Maine; Maryland; New Hampshire; Oregon; Utah; and Washington.  Rhode Island’s Act becomes effective on January 15, 2020.

Ban on Non-Competes For “Low-Wage Earners”; “Nonexempt” Employees; Minors; and “Undergraduate or Graduate” Student Workers

A recently passed Florida law, Florida Statutes 542.336 seeks to prevent medical providers from using restrictive covenants to monopolize medical specialties in rural counties.  The law bars the enforcement of “restrictive covenants” against physicians who practice “a medical specialty in a county wherein one entity employs or contracts with, either directly or through related or affiliated entities, all physicians who practice such specialty in that county.”  Once a second provider enters the market for a particular specialty in a county, restrictive covenants remain unenforceable in that county for a period of three years.

A federal judge in Chicago recently held that an individual can be convicted of attempting to steal a trade secret, even if the information at issue did not actually constitute a trade secret, so long as the individual believed that the information was a trade secret.

In United States of America v. Robert O’Rourke Opinion, Judge Andrea R. Wood denied a post-conviction motion for a new trial in a case involving attempted and actual trade secret theft.  The decision involved a metallurgical engineer and salesperson, Robert O’Rourke, who resigned his employment to take a position as vice president of research and development for a China-based competitor.  Shortly before his last day, he entered his employer’s facility and downloaded over 1900 documents from its network onto a personal hard drive.  His employer discovered this and alerted law enforcement, and O’Rourke was stopped by Customs and Border Patrol officials while attempting to board a flight to China with the hard drive containing the downloaded documents.  At trial, he was convicted of actual and attempted trade secret theft.

I’m pleased to present the 2019 update to our “Trade Secrets Litigation” Practice Note, published by Thomson Reuters Practical Law. My co-author Zachary Jackson and I discuss litigation for employers whose employees have misappropriated trade secrets.