Trade Secrets - Michigan Departing Employees Case

Thanks to Womble Carlyle's Trade Secrets Blog for the heads up on a Michigan case of another departing employee trade secrets case. See Trade Secrets Battle in Detroit - MSC Software Corp. vs. Altair Engineering Inc. and Seven Former MSC Employees. I do like the explanation that hiring of a competitor's former employees was a coincidence. Employing a competitor's former employees does seem to have a benefit - it keeps lawyers employed. Here are the good bits from the Trade Secrets Blog:

Crain's Detroit Business is reporting that Troy, Michigan-based Altair Engineering Inc. wants a federal judge to appoint a programming expert to determine whether any computer codes link Altair's new prototype simulation software to a competitor's.

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MSC filed the lawsuit in July and agreed to dismiss one of the eight former employees from the suit in September."It was people who all worked previously at MSC and moved to the Altair offices," said attorney James Hermon of Dykema Gossett P.L.L.C., one of MSC's attorneys. "They all came out of the Ann Arbor office where this product originates."

The suit alleges that Altair hired more than "20 percent of the MSC Software Adams Group," developed a product using trade secrets and "undertook an aggressive program to induce Adams/Car customers to abandon Adams/Car and adopt Altair MotionView."

Strictly a coincidence, said attorney C. Thomas Ludden of Bloomfield Hills-based Lipson, Nielson, Cole, Seltzer & Garin P.C., who represents the employees. He contends that his clients left MSC at varying times for varying reasons."Our position is — and we've stated as much in the pleadings — that we deny any theft of trade secrets," Ludden said. "We deny that we've done anything to break any laws or even violate a noncompete or confidentiality agreement. The clients moved for all the usual reasons you might change employers."

Remember if you think you have a trade secrets problem in Indiana to contact me.

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