Morrison & Foerster

Firm overview:

Morrison & Foerster, or MoFo, regularly advises clients on how to protect against the theft of IP from external and internal threats by implementing trade secret protection and information security programmes.

The firm’s advice often includes employee agreements or proprietary information agreements with non-competition, non-solicitation, or non-disclosure restrictive covenants. MoFo is recognised by peers as among the leading firms on complex global trade secrets matters and among the early specialists in trade secrets practice, growing up with the tech environment around Silicon Valley.

MoFo’s clients range from early-stage companies to large multinationals, assisting clients with tailored advice under the varying restrictive covenants laws in the US and international jurisdictions. The team also trains clients to design and implement information security programmes and policies to counter intentional or inadvertent data loss.

When emergencies arise, the firm’s trade secret litigators appear in court seeking or defending against emergency relief including temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions. MoFo’s lawyers appear before juries, judges, and arbitrators to try cases involving misappropriation of trade secrets, the US Computer Fraud & Abuse Act, restrictive covenants, employee raiding, customer raiding, and departures of key employees.

Team overview:

MoFo lawyers are recognised as “good on trade secrets matters” and at their best when IP specialists are appointed to their team. Life sciences trial lawyer Daralyn Durie is seen as a good guide on team selection to lawyers instructing the firm.

Michael Jacobs established a reputation as a leading trial attorney for complex technology and life sciences litigation. He is “a quality litigator on the commercial side, a ‘name brand’,” according to a high-profile peer. Now retired from the partnership, Jacobs acts as an arbitrator, mediator and neutral evaluator at global alternative dispute resolution provider JAMS.

Washington, DC-based Mark Whitaker is co-chair of MoFo’s IP Litigation Practice and frequently acts as lead counsel for high-profile technology clients. He has more than three decades of experience handling trade secrets litigation, and is well equipped to advise clients on everything from international trade secret theft to navigating the top legal forums in the US.

Key matters:

• MoFo partner Kenneth Kuyati was a member of the team that successfully tried a high-profile smartphone trade secrets case, leading to a jury verdict of more than $900 million.
• Partner Michael Jacobs represented Seagen, an US biotech developer of empowered monoclonal antibody-based therapies for the treatment of cancer-owned by Pfizer, in a complex commercial dispute with Daiichi Sankyo (DS).

The case was a multi-fora life sciences breach of contract, trade secrets and related IP dispute concerning DS’s revolutionary biotech cancer drugs. The dispute included a multibillion-dollar arbitration, a post-grant review proceeding, and several district court litigations—including a pending challenge against the US government.

Clients:

Accenture, Adobe Systems, Booz Allen Hamilton, Hansen Medical, Konami Digital Entertainment, Seagen.