Trade Secret Theft – Local Man Arrested

Trade secret theft of intellectual property, data misappropriation or corporate espionage is a growing trend. All are considered criminal acts that cost employers and employees millions of dollars and future income. This growing trend has attorney’s teaming up with data and computer forensic experts to find the smoking gun and save their clients a great deal of money. Ultimately saving companies or businesses that may be at risk of closing!

How to Avoid Trade Secret Theft of Intellectual Property and Data Misappropriation?

Corporate trade secret theft of intellectual property and data misappropriation with a competitive international company. All sounds right out of a James Bond movie!

Employee Resigns but Doesn’t Tell He Will Be Working for the Competitor

In September of 2015, an employee of a metal company was caught red-handed at O’Hare International airport with his luggage filled with company documents. That employee was Robert O’Rourke. O’Rourke was unhappy working for Dura-Bar, a McHenry County metal manufacturing firm he started working for in 1984 as a metallurgical engineer and eventually became a salesperson. He accepted a new position for a Chinese competitor named Hualong as Vice President of research and development. When he resigned he didn’t tell Dura-Bar management he was going to work for Hualong company. A company that manufactures cast-iron products and is in direct competition with Dura-Bar. On his last day of work, O’Rourke goes out for drinks with some of his colleagues. He slips up and tells them he is going to work for Hualong.

Departing Employee Downloads Electronic Data and Documents Belonging to the Company.

According to evidence at trial, in late 2013, O’Rourke began several months of negotiations to take a similar job with a rival firm in Jiangsu, China. While still employed at Dura-Bar, he then downloaded electronic data and documents belonging to Dura-Bar without authorization two days before officially leaving the company.  The following week, he packed up the proprietary information and went to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago to board a flight to China.  Federal authorities intervened at the airport and seized the stolen trade secrets from O’Rourke before he could travel to China. Gotcha!

Employee Charged and Convicted

About four years later, in October 2019, a federal judge sentenced a 30-year employee of a McHenry County manufacturing firm to a year and a day in federal prison for stealing trade secret information while planning to work for a rival company in China.

Hire an Expert (HAE)!

Enigma Forensics has over 20 years of experience. We work with attorneys on recovering and proving trade secret theft of intellectual property and data misappropriation for their clients. Criminal acts such as these can cost companies millions of dollars to defend and recover damages. Companies need to protect themselves by setting up protocols to alert when large quantities of data are being downloaded. To further protect themselves, employers must use non-compete agreements when hiring employees that work with proprietary company information.

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Trade Secret Theft and Misappropriation in the Food Industry

Rarely do we hear about trade secret theft and misappropriation in the food industry. It happens! Read about this high profile case involving a famous food celebrity chef!

America’s Test Kitchen (ATK) sues Christopher Kimball for Misappropriation of Trade Secrets

Here is another example of trade secret theft. Check out this blog to see how business and personal emails played a role in the misappropriation of trade secrets. Yes, there is trade secret theft in the food industry!

Who isn’t a fan of cooking shows?

Have you ever watched American’s Test Kitchen (ATK) on public television? In addition to the show, ATK is a multimedia company that has holdings in public television programs such as America’s Test Kitchen, Cook’s Country, cooking magazines and books, and several websites? Who knew? We love watching celebrity chefs like Christopher Kimball and other specialized professionals test the great American recipes like meatloaf, roast chicken, and apple pie!

Trade Secret Missappropriation Lawsuit or Foodie Divorce?

Christopher Kimball was the face and personality behind America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country. In November 2015, Kimball left ATK’s program and started his own program called Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street. When two parties split it’s called a divorce, well, you guessed it, ATK sued Christopher Kimball, the co-founder, part owner, celebrity chef, and the former host of its TV shows. Almost a year later, America’s Test Kitchen Inc. filed a lawsuit on October 31, 2016, as the Plaintiff. They wanted Kimball to change his business model. We call this a foodie divorce.

ATK said Kimball duplicated what he did on the show on Milk Street and that he misappropriated its trade secrets and breached his fiduciary duty to the company. In addition, they claimed that while Kimball was working at ATK as he actively created his new company Milk Street. According to ATK, Kimball stole its collection of recipes, TV show ideas, media contacts, and subscriber information. As a result, ATK sought damages against Kimball and wanted a large sum of all profits that he has derived through the use of the trade secrets he allegedly misappropriated from America’s Test Kitchen.  Other defendants named were Melissa Baldino, Kimball’s wife and a former executive director of ATK, Christine Gordon, and Deborah Broide. ATK claimed they aided and abetted Kimball’s breach of his fiduciary duties.

Non-Compete Agreement between ATK and Kimball

It seems that ATK and Kimball did not have a formal non-compete agreement in place. To protect intellectual property, corporations use a non-compete agreement where the employee agrees not to enter into competition with the employer during or after employment. If an employee departs and takes intellectual property without permission that’s considered trade secret theft and misappropriation.

It’s all in the Email!

This case is an example of where most evidence of trade secret misappropriation can be found. It’s all in the email! A variety of emails were attached to the complaint that included notes between Gordon and real estate brokers, between Kimball and an IT consultant covering such issues as how to copy and store tons of recipes. There were emails discovered between Broide and Kimball regarding the media lists; between Gordon and the ATK help desk about whether company scanners would keep copies of documents she scanned.

The Foodie Divorce finally settled!

To all our fellow foodies the good news is that both parties settled. Kimball agreed to return his ATK shares to the company for an undisclosed price. In the end, they agreed to business terms that will allow America’s Test Kitchen and Kimball’s company, Milk Street to co-exist. Giving us foodies the benefit of watching both shows!

Enigma Forensics is a computer forensic company with litigation experts that partner with attorneys to represent plaintiffs and defendants to help prove their case. We dig for evidence of trade secret theft or misappropriation of intellectual property. Most of all we are foodies! We found this story about trade secret theft and misappropriation in the food industry fascinating and wanted to share.

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Filters Used to Withhold the Complete Electronic Medical Records

The universal implementation of electronic medical records (EMRs) has become the single most important piece of evidence used in medical malpractice litigation. In response to an EMR Discovery request, healthcare providers use various filters to create useless or hard to read data. Hire an expert to help you weed through the audit trail and to present Discovery requests relevant to the case.

Healthcare providers use filters to withhold electronic medical data when complying with a court order and producing EMR audit trails. During the discovery period, EMR audit trails are commonly used as the single most important piece of evidence in medical malpractice litigation. Knowing evidence is in the details, has led to a chess game of filters proving “Not all electronic medical records (EMRs) productions are created equal!” Figuring out how electronic medical records (EMRs) are filtered is a game changer!

Follow the filters!

When counsel requests a patient’s electronic medical records (EMRs) to review for evidence, the production is often delivered in non-electronic limited formats, such as; scan documents, PDF, or image files. Filters provide limited format productions of (EMRs) therefore it becomes extremely difficult to read and find evidence. Are hospitals and healthcare facilities doing this on purpose? Are they filtering their production to include irrelevant information with very little details about the event in question? They are not making it easy that’s for sure. In truth, they are complying with the court order and producing files that include the electronic health records of the plaintiff. They’re just not providing data information in its completeness. Using filters to produce audit trails is fairly common, but for the injured party and representing counsel these tactics are extremely excruciating. Requesting electronic medical records (EMR’s) is now a challenging game of filtering chess!

Forensic Experts know how to request data essential to your case.

It is quite common that hospitals and healthcare facilities use a variety of filters that will result in an incomplete production. When forensic experts study the production headers they uncover filters that were used to produce an incomplete EMR audit trail. Experts know how to ask for relevant data and dig deeper to find evidence.

Filters, Filters, and More Filters!

  1. Date filters that are applied could exclude alteration of records after the event took place. We suggest the best practice is to use the earliest known date prior to the medical event as a starting point and place the end date the same as the current date of the request. Pushing the end date to reflect the current date will show who looked at the record post-event.
  2. Department filters will only return records that are from one particular department, such as radiology or another department.
  3. Employee filters include specific employees of the healthcare facility. If an EMR record only shows entries related to a physician’s user IDs this can be problematic. It’s important to know all of the names and user IDs of all healthcare providers that visited the patient.
  4. Workstation filters are specific to desktops and/or workstations and could be the cause of incomplete production.
  5. Location filters are used by healthcare providers to limit the full scope of production. It is not uncommon for physicians to access important medical records remotely. This could cause manipulation of data by remote access and filter out data after the event in question.

Enigma Forensics has years of experience developing requests for electronic medical records (EMRs). Our experts know how to ask the right question to retrieve the necessary data to be used as evidence. Save yourself time and expense and hire an expert! Our experts are CISSP certified (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) that provide testimony as a professional witness in a court of law.

Please call Enigma Forensics at 312-669-0333 for a complimentary consultation.