Police allege that Si had discovered several incidents of illegal activity performed by Truong and reported him to government officials. After Si made his reports, Truong allegedly hired Luan to harass Si in an attempt to have the former deputy withdraw his reports. After Si refused, Luan allegedly hired the five other men and attacked and killed Si.

Valspar was tipped off to the theft after Lee allegedly resigned abruptly from his job two weeks after returning from a business trip in China. The company discovered suspicious activity on Lee’s laptop, such as recently deleted records as well as a hidden file that contained a number of unauthorized programs, according to the Minneapolis Business Journal.

According to the complaint against him, Lee accepted a job at Nippon Paint Co., one of Valspar’s competitors.

The latest in a decade-old lawsuit, today’s ruling upheld the decision of a lower court that had to decide whether Taco Bell or TBWA was responsible for paying tens of millions of dollars in damages to Wrench, the ad firm that came up with the idea of “Psycho Chihuahua,” which later became the internationally-known Taco Bell Chihuahua.

A good description of the events leading up to the trial can be found in today’sappellate court’s decision. To sum it up, a licensing executive from Taco Bell approached Joseph Shields and Thomas Rinks, the founders of Wrench, after seeing the concept of Psycho Chihuahua at a trade show. He thought it would be a good fit for an upcoming Taco Bell ad campaign.

After price negotiations between Taco Bell and Wrench fell through, Taco Bell turned to their primary ad agency, TBWA, to create a mascot and theme for an upcoming $500 million ad campaign. Taco Bell gave TBWA materials related to Psycho Chihuahua to develop a similar idea for the campaign.

When Shields and Rinks saw the now famous “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” Chihuahua on TV in 1998, they quickly sued Taco Bell.

The two creators of Psycho Chihuahua won the suit and a $42 million judgment.

Taco Bell, after initially entering a “joint defense agreement” with TBWA, then sued the agency, asking for “full indemnification.” Because Taco Bell gave the Psycho Chihuahua materials to TBWA, the judge ruled that Taco Bell was fully liable for the $42 million in damages awarded to Wrench. Taco Bell appealed and lost again with today’s ruling.

Asked whether or not Taco Bell will appeal to a higher court, further dragging out this case, a company spokesperson said, “We just received the opinion today and are reviewing our options.”

Now, Oregon wants a piece of that pie – a piece to the tune of $82 million, or 60 percent of the punitive damages (which came out to $137 million). Naturally, Adidas is opposed to the idea. Less naturally, Payless is also opposed to it. According to the Bloomberg article, Payless is challenging Adidas’ injunction request, saying that it is too broad.

If it ends up getting the $82 million, Oregon will reportedly use the money for a “restitution fund for crime victims.”

NDS says that Christopher Tarnovsky, the hacker in question, was only employed to reverse engineer rival companies’ products. Tarnosvsky admitted he helped develop pirating software, but testified that he didn’t use it to hack into DISH’s security system. Tarnokvsky did say, however, that his first payment came in the form of $20,000 cash “hidden in electronic devices mailed from Canada,” such as CD and DVD players. Doesn’t sound like the most transparent way of doing business. He also said that he was paid by Harper Collins, another News Corp subsidiary, on a regular basis for 10 years.

While Tarnovsky says he “never got money for reprogramming Echostar cards,” he did admit that he created something called “the stinger,” a tool capable of electronically communicating with any smart card in the world. To further complicate NDS’s position, another hacker testified that a third hacker and an NDS employee used the stinger to reprogram a number of EchoStar smart cards.

A good breakdown of EchoStar’s allegations can be found by heading over to Wired Magazine’s report on the story.

Authorities discovered Jin was carrying about $30,000 in cash as well as over 1,000 confidential electronic and paper proprietary documents, all belonging to her former employer, known only in federal documents as “Company A.” According to the indictment against her, Jin was storing the information on a laptop, various hard drives, a thumb drive and a number of data CDs when her luggage was searched.

“We have to be vigilant in preserving the integrity of trade secrets to provide an honest playing field among business competitors, whether foreign or domestic. Trade secrets often are a business’s most valuable assets, and protecting them from theft and betrayal is a high priority for law enforcement,” Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, said in a statement released on Wednesday.

While an official release from the Department of Justice claims that Company A spent “hundreds of millions of dollars on research and development for the proprietary information” that Jin had in her possession, reports by the Chicago Tribune and Information Week both put that price tag at $600 million. If convicted, Jin faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each charge.

“Alpha has suffered and continues to suffer irreparable damage as a result of defendant’s misappropriation of Alpha’s confidential, proprietary and trade secret information.”

Vance hasn’t shown up to any of his eight scheduled court appearances, maybe because he was so busy acquiring jobs at rival companies. In 2005, according to the Herald Tribune, he worked for Florida-based Alpha Mining Systems, Alpha’s China-based competitor Guizhou Tire Co. and United Arab Emirates-based Al Dobowi Group. His job description? Hand over secret Alpha documents to its rival firms, including design blueprints, and advise rivals’ clients that they now can get Alpha designed tires directly from Guizhou.

There’s no word on whether Vance can afford to pay the $19.7 million fine or not (as the Herald Tribune puts it, he may not have the “wherewithal”). It’s also unclear how Vance got the idea to work for Alpha’s overseas rivals in the first place – whether he was disgruntled and reached out to them, or the other way around. Whatever the case, he’s been barred “from working in mining worldwide or contacting his current employers or any current or former customers of Alpha.”

There is one minor fault in the story worth noting: The Herald Tribune states, “Del-Nat Tire Corp. and American Tire Corp. were buying a combined average of $1.9 million per month from Alpha until April 2005, when they stopped buying anything.” American Tire Corporation fervently denies having ever heard of Alpha, yet alone conducting business with the company. So, for all of you conducting business with ATC, don’t worry they’re in the clear.

The most recent setback was a very embarrassing federal judge ruling last week that Qualcomm had knowingly failed to turn over thousands of relevant documents in a patent trial against Broadcom. Judge Rudi Brewster said that Qualcomm knowingly concealed the documents and ordered that the company pay all of Broadcom’s legal expenses as result. Lupin had written an apology letter to the judge back in April after Qualcomm’s outside counsel discovered documents the company hadn’t previously produced that revealed facts “inconsistent with certain arguments that we made on Qualcomm’s behalf.”

Commentary: Perhaps most interesting is how the stock price reacted… it went up by nearly 3%. With 1.67 billion Qualcomm shares outstanding, that translates into a $1.72 billion gain for investors. Maybe they should fire more people as it seems to be working! Not sure how sustainable that business model would be though.

Although the American Red Cross was created in 1881, while Johnson & Johnson started using the trademark in 1887, the American Red Cross did not receive its Congressional charter until 1900.

In the lawsuit Johnson &Johnson contends that even with the charter, the Red Cross was never granted use of their Red Cross logo for commercial activities which competed with private business.

Johnson & Johnson’s claims elicited an angry response from Red Cross president Mark Everson.

“For a multibillion dollar drug company to claim that the Red Cross violated a criminal statute … simply so that J&J can make more money, is obscene…The Red Cross products that J.& J. wants to take away from consumers and have destroyed are those that help Americans get prepared for life’s emergencies…I hope that the courts and Congress will not allow Johnson & Johnson to bully the American Red Cross.”"

According to the Red Cross these products were part of safety and health kits and the company only $2 million annually from sales of the products. Furthermore the Red Cross, in a rebuttal on its website, points out that it has been selling these kits commercially since 1903.

If Johnson & Johnson wins in litigation the Red Cross will have to turn over the remaining products to Johnson & Johnson for destruction and possibly pay punitive damages for the items sold.

Commentary: What is going on in the head of Johnson & Johnson? Even if J&J had a strong case, it is ALWAYS BETTER to reach a private settlement than to run to court. After a 100 years of cooperation on using a similar trademark it seems quite petty for a company with $53 billion in revenues in 2006 suing over $2 million in proceeds that went a non-profit to be used towards disaster relief.

As the company cuts jobs and confronts a whole host of other legal problems, it seems to us that the last thing that Johnson & Johnson needs is more bad publicity. We scanned the commentary and blogs on this story and overall it is running highly negative against J&J. They could lose more money in sales than they hope to gain in this lawsuit. Sometimes the best battles are the ones not fought and maybe right now Johnson & Johnson doesn’t seem to understand that.

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 hero of the game is an “honest and upright official” whose mission is to weed out corrupt officials (along with their mistresses).

Weeding out, however, does not mean “putting in jail.” It means by torture and slaughter. Whenever the player kills a corrupt official, he or she gains “experience points.” As points add up, the player increases powers in “Combating Corruption,” “Moral Character,” and a rating of being “Corruption Free.”

The highest level of the game is the “Honest and Corruption-Free Paradise.” Reportedly, that level is full of singing birds, fragrant flowers, and representations of a “peaceful and prosperous nation.”

Commentary: To increase the game’s appeal nod to China’s long history, the designers of the game used 165 characters from history – both good and bad. For example, Hai Rui and Lord Bao represent strong and honest leaders, while corrupt and evil players are represented by such individuals as the angry enuch Zhao Gao and Heshen.

While we like the historical element of the game, we are a bit perplexed as to how all of the women in China seem to walk around in communist red bikinis. How things must have changed since our last visit! Anyhow, if you can speak Chinese (or if you can’t and simply want to see more pictures), you can visit the NanFang Daily newspaper website for more about the game.

On another interesting note, as some game users have pointed out, the graphics are heavily “borrowed” from another game, “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” offered by a for-profit software company. Not surprisingly, this might leave some wondering if the fact that the government itself made this game means that they don’t have to respect copyrights?

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 a presence (or “avatar”) on “Second Life” and other online universes.

IBM appears to be the first corporation to create rules governing virtual worlds- its guidelines address such things as protection of intellectual property, export controls (!), proper attire, and even sexual harassment and discrimination:

IBM strives to create a workplace that is free from discrimination or harassment and takes steps to remedy any such problems. External virtual worlds, however, are outside of IBM’s control. If you are in a virtual environment in conjunction with your work at IBM and you encounter behavior there that would not be acceptable inside IBM, the recommended approach is to ignore such behavior and to “walk away” or even sign out of the virtual world.

Commentary:Check out the full IBM net-world guidelines here.

Back in the Q2 edition of Ethisphere, we reviewed IBM’s “real world” code of conduct and were impressed – while this online code is not quite as good, they are the first corporation to have established one of its kind, which is impressive in its own right.

See the avatar in the picture up above? That’s the avatar of Sam Palmisano, the CEO of IBM. Other than dressing himself in the IBM blue, it looks like he grew about a foot and hit the gym… sure beats having to work out for real.

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 thereby should be held responsible. It also ordered the supermarket to issue a public apology and pay 100,000 yuan ($13,100) in damages.

Commentary:It’s not a huge fine (it definitely won’t pay for a planeload of lawyers to work on the case), but the fact that the court agreed to order that the market issue a public apology is quite significant (the apology had been one of Puma’s demands in the lawsuit last December). Check out the logo posted above. One might think it is pretty hard to ‘mistakenly infringe’ on such a detailed logo. The Chinese courts agreed.

Sensitive data stolen from Ferrari included engineering documents, test data, and other undisclosed documents. This material was allegedly used to develop Toyota autos in 2002 and 2003.

Commentary: Toyota has been quite lucky that this story has gained ZERO traction in the U.S. media (its largest market). A story linking them to stealing corporate secrets from Western competitors, while crushing these same competitors in the market, would have major consumer backlash potential. Why has it been ignored by the U.S. media? It’s simply we’re all NASCAR fans over here – not Formula One. However, Toyota is entering NASCAR as well…with a Toyota Camry?

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 which Cache La Poudre claimed it had developed for its show feeds in 1991.  The jury, who asserted that Land O’Lakes had acted “willingly and with bad faith,” ruled that the company had engaged in deceptive trade practices and unfair competition.