EMC sues startup for stealing trade secrets through staff hires

November 06, 2013

EMC has sued Pure Storage for allegedly colluding with some of the storage giant's former employees to misappropriate and bring to the startup confidential EMC information and trade secrets, including lists and notes on current and potential customers.Pure Storage CEO Scott Dietzen on Tuesday described the suit by EMC as a sideshow to the real competition between Pure Storage and EMC: delivering next-generation all-flash storage that is "rapidly replacing incumbent mechanical disk systems of which EMC is the market leader."In a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, EMC has alleged that "dozens of former EMC employees have joined Pure Storage and stolen tens of thousands of pages of proprietary, highly confidential and competitively sensitive EMC materials," in violation of their employee agreements. Many of them broke their agreements with EMC by inducing team members to join Pure Storage, it added.The materials are said to include specific information on EMC's "directly competing" flash storage product, selling strategies for the product, and detailed information on customers and their buying patterns.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2061380/emc-sues-startup-for-stealing-trade-secrets-through-staff-hires.html#tk.rss_all