Business Law Journal

Following the Legislature’s 2024 amendments to Section 16600, a new spotlight has been shown down on the so-called Trade Secret Exception and the rift that has emerged over the past few years between California courts about its continued application.  Ultimately, the California Supreme Court will likely be called upon in the near future to address whether—and to what extent—an employer may include restrictive covenants in an employment agreement as necessary to protect the employer’s trade secrets.  Until it does, litigants may credibly argue that the legislature’s recent amendments to Section 16600 abrogated the exception, diminished the exception, or had no effect on it at all.  

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International enforcement of U.S. trademark rights just became much more difficult.  On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision with concurrences from Justices Jackson and Sotomayor in Abitron Austria GmbH v. Hetronic International, Inc., No. 21-1043, 2023 WL 4239255 (U.S. June 29, 2023) (“Abitron”).  The Court settled a decades-long circuit split on extraterritorial application of the Lanham Act by applying a new framework that focuses on where the mark is being used in commerce rather than where the effect of that use is felt.