Goodwin
Firm overview:
US firm Goodwin is acknowledged by peers as one of a handful with the “deep experience and the expertise to guide clients on complex matters with international components and most adept at handling complex global trade secrets matters.”
The firm is noted as one of a group of firms that became early specialists in trade secrets practice, whose practice began as technology specialists, but grew up with the tech environment around Silicon Valley.
The Trade Secrets, Employee Mobility & Non-Competes team comprises intellectual property, employment law, privacy and cybersecurity and business litigation specialists.
Goodwin has advised and represented hundreds of cutting-edge companies, entrepreneurs, investors and startup founders facing these critical issues and disputes in innovation hubs around the world.
As a result, the firm has extensive experience representing former employers, current employers and individual employees in trade secrets and employee mobility matters.
Team overview:
Neel Chatterjee “is one of the big names in the trade secrets arena and has a deserved reputation”, says a peer. Chatterjee has led matters for some of Silicon Valley’s most legendary companies in their most significant technology disputes, handling groundbreaking cases for Facebook, Oracle, eBay, NVIDIA, LinkedIn, Logitech, and many others.
Chatterjee was a speaker on a panel, "Protecting Trade Secrets in Employee and Business Relationships: Sound Practices and New Imperatives" at an online event titled: “Advanced Trade Secrets 2023: New Challenges, New Solutions, and New Opportunities”.
In March, 2023 Stefan Mentzer joined Goodwin’s New York office as part of a three-partner move from White & Case. At White & Case, Mentzer successfully represented US steel manufacturer Valbruna in a Section 337 proceeding, an investigation of unfair practices in import trade, before the US International Trade Commission (ITC).
The ITC found that Viraj Profiles, an India-based stainless steel producer, misappropriated Valbruna’s trade secrets, and prohibited Viraj Profiles from importing and selling stainless steel products in the US for more than 16 years.
Mentzer also represented Pfizer in litigation against pharma rival Merck concerning alleged misappropriation of trade secrets and confidential business information in the development of multi-conjugate pneumococcal vaccines.
Key matters:
- Waymo v Uber
Neel Chatterjee represented Anthony Levandowski, the star engineer and former head of Uber Technologies’ self-driving technology unit at the centre of a trade secrets dispute between Google/Waymo and Uber.
An arbitration panel ruled that Levandowski, and colleague Lior Ron, engaged in unfair competition and breached their legal obligations by starting a rival self-driving company and hiring Google employees. Uber later acquired the startup.
A court confirmed that Levandowski must pay $179 million to Google to end a legal battle over his split from the Alphabet unit.
In January 2021, President Donald Trump granted a full pardon to Levandowski, strongly supported by a group of leading Silicon Valley individuals such as Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and the first outside investor in Facebook.
- Hotspot Therapeutics v Nurix Therapeutics
Neel Chatterjee represented HotSpot Therapeutics in a case concerning the exchange of trade secrets between two biotech companies related to DNA-encoded libraries (DEL), and a ‘DELigase platform’ to target proteins to treat cancer and other diseases.
- Volkswagen Group of America v Smartcar
Neel Chatterjee also represented Smartcar in a case involving the legal and regulatory landscape of car telematics and computer systems access.
Clients:
Anthony Levandowski, HotSpot Therapeutics, Smartcar.
