David J. Clark of Epstein Becker & Green, P.C., writes:
On March 20, 2015, a California federal court rejected an expansive reading of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) urged by two plaintiff corporations that sought to hold a competitor and two of its directors liable under the CFAA, under an agency theory, for the actions of a former employee who allegedly downloaded and stole the corporations’ confidential trade secrets.
The plaintiffs, Koninklijke Philips N.V. and Philips Lumileds Lighting Company (“Lumileds”) are engaged in the business of Light Emitting Diode (“LED”) technology. They alleged that Dr. Gangyi Chen, while employed, downloaded Lumileds’ trade secrets and confidential business information onto a portable storage device, then resigned and began working for a competitor in China, Elec-Tech International Co., Ltd. (“ETI”). Six months after Dr. Chen began at ETI, in an amount of time that plaintiffs called unprecedented in the lighting industry, ETI announced two new high-energy LED lighting products.
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