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Intellectual Property Basics for Business Lawyers
Intellectual property (“IP”) arises in numerous forms and can be among the most valuable assets of a business. It is intangible property and includes patents, inventions, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and mask works. Copyright includes a broad range of works of authorship, such as software, software manuals, movies, books, paintings, or practical items such as a company website or operating manual. Because of the intangible nature of intellectual property, it must usually be protected or it can be lost. Federal and state statutes and the common law provide for the protection of intellectual property. They create legal rights for owners to use intellectual property and to pursue legal remedies for violation of such rights.
Trade Secrets and Non-Competes: A Texas Sized Problem
The paper provides an overview of the Texas Uniform Trade Secret Act ("TUTSA") for non-specialists, recent legislative amendments to TUTSA, pattern jury charges for trade secret litigation, TUTSA business forms and other recent developments in trade secret law. The author also includes an employee termination return of property checklist, an employee handbook provision relating to confidentiality and trade secrets, a template termination letter and a template non-competition, non-solicitation and non-competition agreement.
SLAPPed and Sanctioned: The Long Reach of the Texas Citizens Participation Act
In 2011, the Texas legislature unanimously passed the Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA) The law was designed to curb so-called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (“SLAPP” suits) In 2017 alone, denials of TCPA motions to dismiss were reversed at least twenty-one times.
Trade Secrets 101: What Texas Business Owners and Their Lawyers Need to Know
If a business wants to preserve the ability to sue for misappropriation of trade secrets, it needs to take “reasonable measures” to maintain the confidentiality of the information that constitutes the alleged trade secrets. This is only what businesses need to do from a legal perspective. There are many other practical things businesses can do, but that’s more a topic for security experts than legal experts.