A decision issued earlier this year, MSCI v. Jacob, 36 Misc. 3d 211, 945 N.Y.S.2d 863 (Sup. Ct. N.Y. County 2012), provides insight to factors that should be considered by litigators and their clients in lawsuits involving allegations of trade secret misappropriation. For plaintiffs, such considerations include the need to allege the elements of a trade secrets claim without actually giving away those trade secrets (while being specific enough to survive a motion to dismiss or, possibly, to secure injunctive relief), and the increasingly common mandate that plaintiffs must specify the nature of the trade secrets with particularity before a court will authorize discovery. For defendants, the considerations include putting the onus on plaintiffs to state their claims with specificity and avoiding intrusive and potentially harmful discovery by a competitor.
In MSCI, the plaintiffs (MSCI, Financial Engineering Associates, RiskMetrics Group, and RiskMetrics Solutions)who offer sophisticated computer software to clients participating in the global financial marketasserted that their former worker Philip Jacob and his new employer, Axioma, illegally took computer source codes and their components and sequencing.
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