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Erik Weibust

Member

Epstein Becker Green

Erik Weibust is a Member of Epstein Becker Green. Companies of all sizes and in various industries call upon attorney Erik for his practical and thoughtful advice—and his aggressive representation in high-stakes trade secret, non-compete, and commercial litigation.

Many of the world’s leading pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device, technology, financial services, staffing, and insurance companies look to Erik for thoughtful and practical advice concerning how best to protect their trade secrets and customer relationships from misappropriation by former employees, ex-business partners, competitors, and hostile actors in the United States and abroad, and to avoid liability when hiring from competitors. When necessary, clients rely on Erik for aggressive representation in litigation, where he has won substantial victories in court and at the negotiating table, including broad-reaching injunctive relief and multimillion-dollar payouts, in trade secret misappropriation, unfair competition, and breach of restrictive covenant cases.

In addition to his trade secret and restrictive covenant practice, Erik represents clients in commercial litigation matters, including franchise, distribution, and real estate disputes, to name a few. He has substantial case management experience from the early stages of litigation through the appeals process, including investigations, discovery, mediation, and trial and arbitration, as well as litigation avoidance.

His national litigation practice provides him with particular insight into how courts and arbitrators, in a variety of jurisdictions, analyze relevant issues, keeping him abreast of cutting-edge legal arguments, industry trends, and litigation strategies that he brings to bear in all of his representations. Erik regularly publishes articles and speaks locally and nationally about trade secret and restrictive covenant law, and he has been quoted on these topics in publications such as The Washington Post, Law360, and Ignites (Financial Times). He is also an editor of Epstein Becker Green’s Trade Secrets & Employee Mobility Blog

Before joining Epstein Becker Green, Erik was a Partner at an international law firm, where he served as co-chair of that firm’s Litigation Finance Task Force and co-chaired the Boston office’s Litigation Department. Before that, he clerked for the Honorable Peter W. Hall of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Recent Articles by Erik Weibust

Protecting AI-Generated Inventions as Trade Secrets Requires Protecting the Generative AI as Well

Editor’s Note: Dean A. Pelletier of Pelletier Law, LLC co-authored this article with Erik Weibust.

Legal, technology, business, and academic professionals currently are debating whether an invention autonomously generated by artificial intelligence (AI) should be patentable in the United States and elsewhere. Some proponents of patentability argue that if AI, by itself, is not recognized as an inventor, then AI owners will lack protection for AI-generated inventions and AI innovation, commercialization, and investment (collectively, AI innovation) will be inhibited as a result. Some of those proponents further argue that, without patent protection as an option, AI owners increasingly will opt for trade secret protection, which by design reduces public disclosure of corresponding inventions and, as such, still will inhibit AI innovation. Some opponents of patentability, on the other hand, argue that patenting AI-generated inventions will promote those inventions and discourage human-generated inventions, thereby reducing human innovation and ultimately competition, because patent ownership will become concentrated, or more concentrated, in fewer entities—in particular, large, well-funded entities.

Past Events with Erik Weibust