#tradesecret

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-appeals-court-revives-82-million-verdict-against-ford-trade-secrets-case-2026-05-22/

A trade secret is legally defined as confidential business information that gains economic value from not being generally known and is protected through reasonable efforts to keep it secret. In U.S. law, this definition is most clearly articulated in 18 U.S.C. § 1839, part of the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA).

📘 Core Legal Elements of a Trade Secret
Under federal law, information qualifies as a trade secret if it meets all three of these requirements:

Secrecy — The information is not generally known or readily ascertainable through proper means by others who could benefit from it.

Economic value — The information has actual or potential economic value because it is secret. Competitors would gain an advantage if they obtained it.

Reasonable measures — The owner takes reasonable steps to maintain its secrecy (e.g., NDAs, access controls, secure storage).

If any one of these elements' stops being true, the information loses trade secret protection.

🧩 What Counts as a Trade Secret?
Trade secrets can include virtually any type of business, technical, or scientific information, such as:

Formulas (e.g., beverage recipes)

Processes or manufacturing methods

Algorithms

Customer lists

Designs or prototypes

Negative know‑how (failed experiments that reveal what doesn’t work)

The law covers both tangible and intangible information, regardless of how it is stored.

🏛️ Authoritative Legal Definition (DTSA)
Under 18 U.S.C. § 1839(3), a trade secret includes “all forms and types of financial, business, scientific, technical, economic, or engineering information… if (A) the owner has taken reasonable measures to keep such information secret; and (B) the information derives independent economic value… from not being generally known.”

Nothing says ‘competitive advantage’ like posting the Permian well logs, 1533’ core spacing, and perforation clusters. This is what winning looks like.

Thank you ST for posting that to LinkedIn

Fake news or bad news ?
Is it ok to keep a stealing person in your house or company ?

https://www.theverge.com/news/831353/intel-tsmc-wei-jen-lo-trade-secrets


SAP SE was sued by supply-chain artificial intelligence firm o9 Solutions Inc., which claimed three of its former executives stole trade secrets for the European software giant.

In a complaint filed Tuesday in Dallas federal court, o9 claimed the stolen trade secrets concerned the design, implementation and testing of its supply-chain management software. The company, whose backers include KKR & Co. and General Atlantic, was valued in 2023 at $3.7 billion.

According to o9’s suit, longtime market leader SAP was losing customers to competitors in the business-planning software space due to its outdated platform. As a result, SAP allegedly launched an “aggressive campaign” to target o9’s trade secrets. Since the documents were reportedly stolen, o9 claims SAP has altered its software to closely mirror the startup’s offerings.

A representative for SAP declined to comment on the lawsuit.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/18/netapp_cto_lawsuit/

Former CTO being sued for stealing trade secrets.

A former executive at a company that sells zero-day vulnerabilities and exploits to the United States and its allies pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington, DC, on Wednesday to selling trade secrets worth at least $1.3 million to a buyer in Russia, according to US prosecutors.

Peter Williams, a 39-year-old Australia native who resides in the US, faced two charges related to the theft of trade secrets. As part of the plea agreement, Williams faces between 87 and 108 months in prison and fines of up to $300,000. He must also pay restitution of $1.3 million.

Williams will be sentenced early next year. Until then, he will remain on house arrest at his apartment, must undergo electronic monitoring, and is permitted to leave his home for one hour each day, according to the plea agreement.

Williams worked for less than a year as a director at L3 Harris Trenchant—a subsidiary of the US-based defense contractor L3Harris Technologies—when he resigned in mid-August from the company for unspecified reasons, according to UK corporate records. Prior to his time at Trenchant, Williams reportedly worked for the Australian Signals Directorate, during the 2010s. The ASD is equivalent to the US National Security Agency and is responsible for the cyber defense of Australian government systems as well as the collection of foreign signals intelligence. As part of its signals intelligence work, the ASD has authority to conduct hacking operations using the kinds of tools that Trenchant and other companies sell.

This month the Justice Department accused Williams of stealing seven trade secrets from two companies and selling them to a buyer in Russia between April 2022 and June 2025, a time period that coincides in part with Williams’ employment at L3 Trenchant.

The document does not name the two companies, nor does it say whether the buyer, described by prosecutors as a software-based Russian broker, was connected to the Russian government. (L3 Trenchant faces no criminal liability.)

According to the US attorney overseeing the case, Tejpal S. Chawla, the FBI alerted L3 Trenchant sometime in 2024 that some of its software had leaked. As TechCrunch reported last week, Trenchant was investigating an alleged leak of its hacking tools by employees—an investigation that Williams, then general manager of the firm, oversaw, prosecutors said during Wednesday’s hearing.

Williams was voluntarily interviewed by the FBI multiple times this summer, including once on July 2. The same month, prosecutors say, Williams signed a contract with the unnamed Russian company worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, using the alias John Taylor and an email address with the same name. This deal followed a separate contract that prosecutors say Williams signed in June. The FBI again interviewed Williams in August and confronted him about the sale of company secrets, prosecutors said. The prosecution said Williams admitted to the sales at that time.

Prosecutors assert that Williams made at least $1.3 million from the sale of the trade secrets and have moved to seize his assets, including a home in DC, funds held in several banking and crypto accounts, and a list of luxury items that includes nearly two dozen high-end and replica watches and other designer goods.

Trenchant, known formally as L3 Harris Trenchant, develops hacking tools for the US government and its allies. L3 Trenchant was formed after L3 Technologies purchased Azimuth Security and Linchpin Labs in 2018 and combined the two companies. L3 Technologies later merged with a military communications equipment provider to form L3Harris.

Azimuth was a developer of zero-day exploits based in Australia, and Linchpin Labs was a software firm founded by former intelligence officials from Five Eyes countries. (Five Eyes is a surveillance partnership formed by the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.) Trenchant develops various forms of hacking tools for browsers such as Chrome, as well as Apple’s iOS, Android, and desktop and network computing systems.

The Department of Justice filed charges against Peter Williams, an Australian national who served as general manager of Trenchant, a specialized cybersecurity division within L3Harris.

Federal prosecutors have accused a former executive at L3Harris Technologies’ cyber division of stealing trade secrets and selling them to an undisclosed buyer in Russia, according to court documents obtained by CyberScoop.

The Department of Justice filed charges against Peter Williams, an Australian national who served as general manager of Trenchant, a specialized cybersecurity division within L3Harris, which provides hacking and surveillance tools to Western intelligence agencies. The DOJ alleges Williams misappropriated eight trade secrets from two unnamed companies between April 2022 and August 2025, charging that he earned $1.3 million in connection with the sales.

While the filings do not specify the nature of the stolen trade secrets nor do they identify the Russian buyer, they allege Williams systematically transferred confidential proprietary data over a period spanning more than three years. Prosecutors are seeking the forfeiture of Williams’ assets, including his residence, luxury watches, jewelry, and funds in seven bank and cryptocurrency accounts, claiming these were derived from the criminal activity.

Neither Trenchant nor its parent, L3Harris, is accused of any wrongdoing in the federal complaint. An arraignment and possible plea agreement are scheduled for Oct. 29 in Washington, D.C.

Trenchant, formed in 2018 following L3Harris’s acquisition of Azimuth Security and Linchpin Labs — Australian startups that developed zero-day exploits — caters to governments in the intelligence-sharing Five Eyes alliance. These technologies, based on undisclosed vulnerabilities, are considered valuable assets in intelligence and defense circles, sometimes commanding prices in the millions, and are tightly held given their national security implications.

The allegations against Williams arrive in the wake of an internal investigation at Trenchant earlier this year, reportedly prompted by a leak of hacking tools. According to multiple former employees interviewed by TechCrunch, one former exploit developer was wrongly accused by company officials of leaking the tools, particularly exploits targeting products like Google Chrome.

Whether the Justice Department’s action is tied directly to this internal leak investigation remains unclear. Court filings do not explicitly connect the sale of secrets to the incident or elaborate on overlaps between the two events.

L3Harris, headquartered in Melbourne, Fla., declined to comment. Williams’ attorney did not reply to CyberScoop requests for comment.

https://cyberscoop.com/ex-l3harris-executive-accused-of-selling-trade-secrets-to-russia/