Plaintiff – a small online marketing company – sued a large, publicly-traded competitor for copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, deceptive and unfair practices, and breach of contract. The parties had previously signed a nondisclosure agreement and an agreement whereby plaintiff would provide defendant with access to plaintiff’s technology used to monitor the scope of companies’ online presence and the accuracy of information appearing in search engines. The parties had also engaged in discussions about defendant acquiring plaintiff. But after the negotiations broke off, plaintiff discovered that it appeared defendant had appropriated plaintiff’s technology (including copyright-protected materials) into defendant’s own product offerings.
The lower court entered a preliminary injunction against defendant, barring it from offering the allegedly infringing and misappropriating technology. Defendant sought review of the entry of preliminary injunction with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The appellate court affirmed the order.
The appellate court rejected defendant’s argument that the lower court had not described specifically enough those trade secrets of plaintiff that defendant had allegedly misappropriated. It also rejected defendant’s arguments that plaintiff’s delay in bringing suit undermined its argument of irreparable harm, that plaintiff failed to show that it was likely to succeed on the merits of its underlying claims, and that the district court erred in weighing the balance of harm and in considering the impact on the public interest.
Advice Interactive Group, LLC v. Web.com Group, Inc., 2018 WL 2246603 (11th Cir., May 16, 2018)
About the Author: Evan Brown is a Chicago technology and intellectual property attorney. Call Evan at (630) 362-7237, send email to ebrown [at] internetcases.com, or follow him on Twitter @internetcases. Read Evan’s other blog, UDRP Tracker, for information about domain name disputes.