Veeva Systems: dismissal of trade-secret lawsuit
A US District Court has dismissed a trade-secret misappropriation lawsuit against Veeva Systems, filed by Medidata (a Dasssault Systemes company). Citing a lack of evidence, the judge ruled against the suit, which was originally filed in 2017.
Judge Jed Rakoff noted in his ruling that Medidata’s filing indicates “they seem to think that just about anything in the world can be a trade secret. And that, of course, would mean that you could never hire away an employee from another company because anything they said — one word out of their mouth — would indirectly reveal something they had learned at their prior employment…and both the statutes here involved, and also legislative history make clear that that was not the intent of the legislators...”