The Cause of Action

The Court treats this cause of action as misappropriation of trade secrets. (Sargent Fletcher, Inc. v. Able Corp. (2003) 110 Cal.App.4th 1658, 1665-1666) “Under the UTSA, a prima facie claim for misappropriation of trade secrets requires the plaintiff to demonstrate:

1. the plaintiff owned a trade secret,
2. the defendant acquired, disclosed, or used the plaintiff’s trade secret through improper means, and
3. the defendant’s actions damaged the plaintiff.

(Id. citing Civ.Code Sec, 3426.1.)

“Improper means” includes theft, bribery, misrepresentation, breach or inducement of a breach of a duty to maintain secrecy, or espionage through electronic or other means,’ but ‘[r]everse engineering or independent derivation alone shall not be considered improper means.’ (Id. Civ.Code Sec. 3426.1(a).)”.

Intellectual Property and Property Interest

CCP 387 provides for both mandatory and discretionary intervention. Under CCP 387(b), a party in entitled to intervene as a matter of right if that party has an interest in the property or transaction that is the subject of the action and is so situated that any disposition of the action would, in its absence, impair or impede intervener's ability to protect that interest.

Intellectual Property as Patent and Ownership Determination

“[P]atent ownership is determined by state, not federal law.” (Sky Technologies LLC v. SAP AG (2009) 576 F.3d 1374, 1379 citing Akazawa, 520 F.3d at 1357 (citing Jim Arnold Corp. v. Hydrotech Sys., Inc., 109 F.3d 1567, 1572 (Fed. Cir.1997) ("[T]he question of who owns the patent rights and on what terms typically is a question exclusively for state courts."). “However, ‘the question of whether a patent assignment clause creates an automatic assignment or merely an obligation to assign is intimately bound up with the question of standing in patent cases,’ and therefore we have ‘treated it as a matter of federal law.’” (Id. citing DDB Techs., L.L.C. v. MLB Advanced Media, L.P., 517 F.3d 1284, 1290 (Fed.Cir.2008). “Usually, federal law is used to determine the validity and terms of an assignment, but state law controls any transfer of patent ownership by operation of law not deemed an assignment.” (Id.)