BladeRoom v. Facebook and Emerson

After a five-week jury trial before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, our team won for UK-based BladeRoom a $30 million verdict against global manufacturing giant Emerson for willful and malicious misappropriation of trade secrets and breach of a non-disclosure agreement relating to BladeRoom’s revolutionary new methodology for constructing warehouse-sized data centers. The Daily Journal named this one of the “Top Verdicts” in California in 2018. The Court subsequently awarded BladeRoom an additional $30 million in exemplary damages and $17 million in prejudgment interest, for a total judgement exceeding $77 million. Our client settled with Facebook after the first week of trial.

Firm Highlights

Publication

How To Avoid Allegations of Trade Secret Misappropriation in California

When departing a company, an executive, founder, or employee with access to trade secrets or confidential information may face legal allegations around whether they will use or disclose their former employer’s trade secrets at...

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Publication

Under FTC’s New Proposed Rule, Employers Will No Longer Be Able to Rely on Noncompete Agreements

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed a rule that would prohibit the use of noncompete agreements in employment contracts. Noncompete agreements prevent employees and independent contractors from pursuing certain forms of employment &ndash...

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News

Farella Braun + Martel Announces 2023 New Partner Class

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Publication

What Recent Rulings in 'hiQ v. LinkedIn' and Other Cases Say About the Legality of Data Scraping

LinkedIn obtained a permanent injunction on Dec. 6 in its six-year-old lawsuit against data scraping company hiQ Labs, which LinkedIn quickly cheered as a “final, decisive victory” that established an “important legal precedent.” While...

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News

Farella Names Carolina de Armas and Hilary Krase As Leadership Council on Legal Diversity Pathfinders

Carolina de Armas and Hilary Krase
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Publication

Highlights from 2022 Unified Patents Corporate IP Strategy Conference

Recently, several Farella lawyers attended the 2022 Corporate IP Strategy Conference, co-hosted by the Santa Clara University High Tech Law Journal and Unified Patents. Eugene Mar, Erik Olson, Dan Callaway, and Tom Pardini enjoyed...

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News

PNC Scores a Win in Battle With USAA Over Mobile Check Deposit Patents

Eugene Mar, intellectual property litigation partner and chair of the Technology Industry Group, spoke to American Banker for the article "PNC Scores a Win in Battle With USAA Over Mobile Check Deposit Patents." "My...

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Publication

Failures Are Valuable IP: Protect Your Startup’s Negative Trade Secrets

Technology companies and start-ups are familiar with protecting inventions with patents, and protecting their secret formulas, source code, and algorithms as trade secrets. But tech companies may not be aware of another powerful form of...

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Publication

Platform Ecosystems: Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Other Scraping Law Developments (Webinar)

Erik Olson and Stephanie Skaff discuss "Platform Ecosystems: Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Other Scraping Law Developments." Web scraping has existed as long as the World Wide Web has, and as data has...

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News

Jim Day Named Among Daily Journal’s Top IP Lawyers in California

James Day Headshot
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