The chief executive of a Vietnamese real estate investment company, Hoang Hai Ltd., was arrested for allegedly hiring a man to carry out an attack on the executive’s former deputy. The executive, Ngo Quang Truong, hired Vu Van Luan, who then allegedly hired five other men to help carry out the attack. Police allege that [...]

In March, the FBI’s Chicago field office arrested a 52-year-old former employee of Valspar Corp, and charged him with theft of company secrets. The former employee, David Yen Lee of Arlington Heights, Ill., faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Valspar was tipped off to the theft after Lee [...]

A federal appellate court ruled today that Taco Bell, and not its ad agency TBWA, is responsible for the $42 million payment to the original creators of the now famous Taco Bell Chihuahua mascot.

In 2005, Adidas AG sued Collective Brands, Inc., parent company of Payless ShoeSource, for selling shoes that have a triple-striped design similar to that of Adidas’ products. In early May, a federal jury in Oregon awarded Adidas nearly

EchoStar Communications, the parent company of DISH Network, filed a corporate espionage lawsuit against News Corp’s NDS Group, alleging that the firm hired one of the “two best hackers in the world” to hack into DISH’s satellite network and steal the company’s security codes, according to a report by Reuters. NDS, which provides various security [...]

Who says random airport searches don’t work? United States customs officials discovered that Hanjuan Jin, 37, a China-born U.S. citizen, was allegedly trying to leak confidential trade secrets from her former U.S. employer to a China-based rival when they searched her luggage at

A Florida man has been found guilty of dishing out company trade secrets from his former employer, Alpha Mining Systems, to competitors. Alpha, a global manufacturer of industrial mining tires, won a $19.7 million judgment against Sam Vance, the company’s former sales and marketing manager. The judge ruled that Vance gave competitors more than enough [...]

Qualcomm Inc. announced today the resignation of General Counsel Lou Lupin. Lupin had been known for his aggressive “take no prisoners” approach. Carol Lam, a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California, was named his interim successor. Analysts are thinking that in pushing Lupin out the door, the company may be signaling that [...]

After months of closed-door negotiating, pharma giant Johnson & Johnson filed a lawsuit Wednesday against The American Red Cross claiming that the Red Cross violated trademark laws by using the red cross symbol on certain commercial products. Although the American Red Cross was created in 1881, while Johnson & Johnson started using the trademark in [...]

The Communist Party Disciplinary Committee of the Haishu district in Ningbo has underwritten the creation of an online multi-player computer game called “The Incorruptible Warrior.” The game went live last week on July 25th and it has already been downloaded over 100,000 times, with hundreds of players engaging online simultaneously. Why so popular? Because the [...]

Online virtual worlds like “Second Life” continue to grow at a rapid clip. Commerce, business meetings, and other far racier ‘encounters’ are becoming more commonplace in these virtual worlds. To help protect its reputation, IBM announced this week that it was establishing a code of conduct to govern its more than 5,000 employees who have [...]

As reported in China Daily, German sports apparel giant Puma AG won its lawsuit against a Shanghai supermarket for selling fake Puma athletic shoes. The Shanghai First Intermediate People’s Court ruled that Fu-mart illegally sold sneakers bearing logos identical to the Puma logo. The court ruled that the supermarket failed to identify the infringement, and [...]

Two former Ferrari engineers accused of stealing trade secrets have been convicted of industrial espionage and sentenced to jail by an Italian court over charges of stealing confidential engineering data from Ferrari and using it to design cars for motor racing rivals Toyota. Sensitive data stolen from Ferrari included engineering documents, test data, and other [...]

Land O’Lakes, Inc. has been ordered to pay a Colorado feed manufacturer $15.2 million after a federal jury found that the company knowingly infringed upon the manufacturer’s trademark. Cache La Poudre sued Land O’Lakes in 2004, alleging that the company began rebranding its lines of show feed under the brand name “Profile,” the same name [...]