Illinois employers planning to protect confidential and proprietary trade secret information through the use of non-compete agreements or non-solicitation agreements need to be aware of amendments to the Illinois Freedom to Work Act that will take effect on January 1, 2022. These changes will institute a number of new requirements designed to restrict the use of non-compete and non-solicitation agreements.
Illinois law currently prohibits employers from requiring that workers earning less than $13 per hour sign non-compete agreements. That threshold is about to change. The law will instead prohibit the use of non-competes with workers earning less than $75,000 annually, and the minimum threshold will increase at various pre-determined dates. The minimum amount will rise to $80,00 per year on January 1, 2027, $85,000 per year on January 1, 2032, and $90,000 per year on January 1, 2037.
Continue Reading Illinois Amends Requirements for Non-Compete Agreements
Crowell & Moring invites you to attend the webinar, 2020 Trade Secrets Year in Review, taking place on Thursday, January 28 at 12:00 pm ET. We will cover what you need to know about the big cases, changes, and developments relating to trade secrets from the past year.
As the year comes to a close, it’s safe to say 2020 was a year unlike any other and full of lessons to be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic to the growing threat to U.S. intellectual property abroad.
On August 13, 2020, a Delaware District Court judge granted Defendant Azstrazeneca Pharmaceuticals LP’s motion to dismiss, finding that Plaintiff Lithero, LLC failed to plead a plausible trade secret misappropriation claim under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”).
This week, the U.S. government continued its enforcement activity against Chinese government-sponsored trade secret theft, indicting two Chinese hackers for allegedly stealing data from 25 domestic and international companies, including targeting those now researching COVID-19 testing, vaccines, and treatment. The two defendants had allegedly acquired hundreds of millions of dollars worth of trade secrets and other valuable business information across a span of nearly eleven years. This announcement follows in the wake of the indictment of Dr. Charles Lieber, a former Harvard professor, who allegedly lied about his participation in China’s “Thousand Talents Plan,” a program that has been accused of facilitating the stealing of American trade secrets. Our coverage of that indictment is 
During these unprecedented times, some people are itching to get back to “normal.” As evidenced by the excitement over the recent re-opening of some states and cities, there is an obvious desire to return to the way of life we remember. However, this likely won’t be fully possible without the development of a vaccine, which, along with health-treatment drugs, is understandably the subject of intensive development efforts.
The COVID-19 crisis has presented an array of novel issues for companies, including new and unexpected cybersecurity threats. In addition to the now well-known security limitations of video platforms such as Zoom, we are seeing cyber-attacks in the form of COVID-19 related phishing attempts and ransomware attacks. In at least some of these attempted hacks, cybercriminals are hoping to steal trade secrets.
The COVID-19 pandemic is shining a new light on the risk of trade secret theft to businesses worldwide from greater employee mobility associated with rising unemployment and a looming recession, cyberattacks by opportunistic hackers, and a growing remote workforce with technological threats from increased use of smart devices that may leave little to no data trail.
Are non-competes still enforceable in middle of the unprecedented economic disruption caused by COVID-19? Many employers have reacted to the business impact of COVID-19 by downsizing and laying off employees, some of whom signed non-compete agreements or restrictive covenants to protect the employer’s legitimate business interests, including its trade secrets and confidential information. Those same businesses now are left wondering whether those non-compete agreements are enforceable in the wake of massive unemployment triggered by the pandemic.