Bird & Bird
Firm overview:
Bird & Bird provides an all-encompassing trade secrets protection service at an international scale. The firm is constantly finding ways to make collaboration between its offices worldwide more seamless, and clients benefit from the team’s broad expertise on trade secrets across multiple continents.
Bird & Bird’s strong technology focus and sector-approach offer a solid foundation for handling trade secrets matters, backed up by the team’s renowned litigation scope. An in-house IT forensics team is able to collect evidence from digital storage media, equipping the firm with the ability to respond quickly to trade secrets breaches.
Before matters get contentious—and to try and keep them that way—Bird & Bird supports clients with assessing and minimising risks via policies, documentation and training. The firm also offers thought leadership on global trade secrets in the form of publications, webinars and events, with its Global Guide on Confidential Information, Trade Secrets and Post-Termination Restrictions providing jurisdiction-specific guidance.
Team overview:
Based in Helsinki, Tom Vapaavuori heads up the international Trade Secret group, as well as the Finnish Dispute Resolution team. Vapaavuori has extensive experience in handling litigations, arbitrations and trade secret matters.
In Belgium, Domien Op de Beeck advises on patents and trade secrets laws and is adept at navigating the procedural intricacies of IP litigation, as well as devising out-of-court solutions.
Another key member of the team, Tim Spillane heads up the London Employment team, advising companies and senior executives on a wide range of employment matters, often with an international dimension.
Key matters:
- Konecranes: Trade secrets dispute resolution
Bird & Bird is advising major machine industry company Konecranes in a dispute against its 13 former managers, who started competing activities during their employment and resigned from the company.
Bird & Bird’s team: Tom Vapaavuori (partner, Helsinki), Ville Kivistö (senior counsel, Helsinki), Anton Hartzell (associate, Helsinki), Mikael Vuorinen (associate, Helsinki) and Esa Airola (senior associate, Helsinki).
- VMI Holland: Dispute resolution
The team acted as legal counsel for client VMI Holland as the plaintiff in three patent ownership disputes in landmark judgments made by the Supreme People’s Court of China. The defendant was found to have misappropriated the client’s technical secrets and further filed three patents based on the misappropriated technical secrets. The judgments awarded the three patents back to the client.
These judgments ended long legal disputes with victories for VMI and established a solid basis for its IP rights.
Bird & Bird’s team: Christine Yiu (partner, Beijing), Aden Chen (partner, Bird & Bird associated firm Lawjay Partners), Leon Li (associate, Shanghai), Emily Zhao (associate, Shanghai).
- Fujifilm Electronic Materials: Trade secret misappropriation
Bird & Bird provided strategic counsel to Fujifilm Electronic Materials, which was confronted with the threat of potential trade secret misappropriation following the departure of a key employee to a competitor. The team’s measures included conducting comprehensive exit interviews, issuing warning letters to both the departing employee and the involved competitor, and offering legal guidance on monitoring data transfers.
These efforts resulted in successful protection, effectively minimising the risk of unauthorised use.
Anton Aerts (partner, Brussels), led the team.
Clients:
Contingent & Future Technologies, Fujifilm Electronics Materials, Konecranes, VMI Holland
