Enforcement and defense of intellectual-property rights, trade secrets, and the proprietary information and methods that often carry a company's enterprise value.
An employer that leaves the whistleblower-immunity notice out of an employee's confidentiality agreement cannot recover exemplary damages or attorneys' fees from that employee under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, and exemplary damages can double the award. We read the agreements before we read the download logs.
For a trading firm the secret is usually code, a signal or a dataset, and the dispute begins with a resignation. Federal law allows an ex parte seizure order in extraordinary circumstances and a civil claim within three years of discovering the misappropriation; Illinois allows five. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act no longer reaches an insider who misused data they were allowed to access, so the case is built on the contracts and the trade-secret statutes. An Illinois non-compete signed by an employee earning $75,000 or less is void, whatever it says.
We enforce and defend these rights in court and in arbitration. Where a proprietary-trading dispute touches a regulator, we have represented clients in matters before the SEC and the CFTC; we do not speak for the agencies, only for the companies and individuals in front of them.
Enforcement of intellectual-property rights through litigation and dispute resolution, including infringement claims over patents, trademarks, and copyrights, brought to protect the competitive advantage those rights secure.
Protection of trade secrets, confidential methods, and proprietary information, including the misappropriation claims that follow when a competitor, a departing employee, or a counterparty takes what was meant to stay inside the business.
Representation in disputes over proprietary trading methods, models, and confidential trading information, where the competitive edge at issue is the thing the firm trades on. This includes matters before the SEC and the CFTC.
Defense of clients facing infringement and misappropriation claims. We test the strength of the rights asserted, the scope of any duty owed, and the relief sought before the exposure hardens.
Resolution of disputes arising from licensing arrangements, confidentiality and non-disclosure obligations, and the agreements that define how proprietary assets may be used and by whom.
Arbitration, mediation, and negotiated resolution of IP and proprietary-trading disputes, used where a sound settlement protects the competitive advantage at less cost and with less disruption than a trial would.
A trade secret is information that derives value from not being generally known and that its owner protected with reasonable measures. The second element is where cases are lost: a model any desk could copy to a personal drive, under no written obligation of confidence, was never a secret in law.
A temporary restraining order can issue without notice on a sworn showing of immediate and irreparable injury, and it expires in 14 days unless extended once for good cause. The fortnight is for expedited discovery and the preliminary-injunction hearing, so the forensic images and declarations must exist before the motion is filed.
Once litigation is reasonably foreseeable both sides must preserve evidence, and in a departure case that is usually the day notice is given. A laptop wiped after that date invites sanctions, and an adverse-inference instruction follows if the court finds the wiping was meant to deprive the other side of the evidence.
Federal law needs evidence of threatened misuse before it will keep a departing employee out of a job. Where misuse is shown the injunction runs for the head start the theft bought, the time independent development would have taken, and a court may order a royalty instead where an injunction would be inequitable.
Illinois courts can enjoin a former employee from a role in which use of the old employer's secrets would be inevitable, even without proof that anything was taken. California refuses the doctrine outright. The governing-law clause in the employment agreement therefore decides whether the theory is available at all.
A proprietary-trading dispute can draw a regulator's interest. Where it does, we have represented clients in matters before the SEC and the CFTC. We do not speak for the agencies.
A resignation, an odd download log, a repo clone at 2 a.m. The first seventy-two hours are forensic work before they are legal work. Devices are imaged, access is cut, litigation holds issue, and exfiltration paths are mapped before anyone tips off the other side.
With the forensic record in hand, we move for a TRO and expedited discovery to freeze the code, the models, and the departing team before the edge is replicated. In the rare case that warrants it, we seek the DTSA's ex parte seizure order.
The defining fight of the merits phase is identifying the trade secret with particularity without giving it away. Source code and trading models are litigated under layered protective orders, with attorneys'-eyes-only tiers, clean-room review, and experts under seal.
The facts pick the endgame, which may be a permanent injunction with head-start damages, a negotiated license that converts the dispute into revenue, or a consent judgment with teeth. Where a regulator has taken an interest, we manage that track in parallel.
You cannot un-teach a competitor your model. Every remedy runs through what you preserved in week one.
It is a dispute over intellectual-property rights, trade secrets, and the proprietary information a business relies on for its competitive advantage. These matters range from infringement of patents, trademarks, or copyrights to the misappropriation of confidential methods, models, and data, including the trading methods that may carry much of a firm's enterprise value. We handle both the enforcement of those rights and the defense of clients accused of crossing them.
Because the remedies are built for speed and the evidence is not built to last. A temporary restraining order can issue within days on a sworn showing of immediate and irreparable injury, but it expires in 14 days, so the forensic images, the access logs and the declarations have to be ready when the motion is filed. Once litigation is foreseeable both sides must preserve their devices and accounts, and a departing employee's personal phone or cloud drive is often overwritten within weeks. On the limitations side, a federal claim must be brought within three years of discovering the misappropriation and an Illinois claim within five, which is ample; the first fortnight is the deadline that matters.
Often, yes. Many intellectual-property and proprietary-trading disputes are resolved through arbitration, mediation, or negotiated licensing rather than a full trial. Those routes can cost less and preserve a commercial relationship while still protecting the asset. We decide on the facts of each matter which route to take; nothing goes to trial by default.
Hart David Carson LLP handles the enforcement and defense of intellectual-property rights, trade secrets, and proprietary information through litigation and dispute resolution. That includes infringement and misappropriation claims, protection of confidential and proprietary methods, licensing disputes, and the early case assessment, discovery management, and trial preparation that complex IP matters require. One partner carries the matter from the first call to its resolution.
By making sure the lawsuit does not disclose what the theft did not. Courts generally require the secret to be identified with reasonable particularity before discovery into the other side's systems proceeds, and the identification is drafted narrowly enough to be protected and broadly enough to cover what was taken. Source code and trading models are produced under a protective order with an attorneys'-eyes-only tier, reviewed on a computer that is never connected to a network and filed under seal, with experts bound by the same order. Where the facts allow, the matter is resolved by a license or a consent judgment that keeps the model out of the public record entirely.
Where a proprietary-trading dispute touches a regulator, we have represented clients in matters before the SEC and the CFTC. We do not speak for the agencies; we act for the companies and individuals in front of them. Many IP and proprietary-trading disputes, though, involve no regulator at all; they are private commercial matters resolved in court or through arbitration.
Trial advocacy for complex business disputes, contract breaches, and commercial conflicts in state and federal court, from early case assessment through judgment and appeal.
Explore →Representation in futures-fraud, unauthorized-trading, and derivatives disputes involving brokers and trading conduct, including matters before the CFTC.
Explore →Arbitration, mediation, and conciliation that resolve disputes without the time, cost, and uncertainty of trial, and often with the business relationship intact.
Explore →Employer-side representation in employment disputes, discrimination claims, and workplace conflict, including the departing-employee matters where trade-secret exposure often begins.
Explore →Reviewed by Jonathan D. Herpy, Sr., Senior Partner · Last updated October 2026 · Educational overview · Not legal advice
One partner is accountable for the whole matter, and you have that partner's direct line. Chicago, London, and Dubai work to the same standard.