BizTech Law Blog

Speed Date USA, Inc. is suing the online dating company Match.com for $5.65 million for allegedly breaching its contract and misappropriating trade secrets. In essence, the lawsuit claims that Match.com terminated the contract early and then breached its obligations to hold joint events. Match.com terminated the contract, according to the lawsuit, upon learning Speed Date's trade secrets. Match.com then allegedly began to run its own speed dating events without compensating Speed Date USA.

Trade secrets are commonly defined by state statues and generally consist of four elements for the information to constitute a trade secret. The elements of a trade secret are: (i) information; (ii) that has independent economic value; (iii) which is not generally known or readily available; and (iv) such information is subject to reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy.

As a reminder, under the JOBS Act, each investor is limited as to how much the investor can invest in an issuer (the company raising capital) using the crowdfunding exemption during a 12-month period of time. There were some ambiguities in the language of the Act. The SEC proposes to clarify the ambiguities such that the limitations are as follows:

• If the investor’s annual income and net worth are both less than $100,000, the investor may only invest the greater of $2,000 or 5% of the investor’s net worth during a 12-month period.
• If either the investor’s annual income or the investor’s net worth exceeds $100,000, the investor may only invest the greater of 10% of the investor’s net worth or 10% of investor’s annual income, but not to exceed $100,000 during a 12-month period.

Bitcoin is an application of crypto-currency, which is based on the premise that money can be any object or record that is accepted as payment. Bitcoins use a peer-to-peer networking system and are not managed by any central authority. They can be transferred by a computer or a smartphone without a mediating financial institution. Bitcoins are rumored to have been originated by a computer programmer going by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto, whose real identity remains mysterious.