Trade Secrets and Proprietary Information (a) Executive recognizes and acknowledges that the Company, through the expenditure of considerable time and money, has developed and will continue to develop in the future information concerning customers, clients, marketing, products, services, business, research and development activities and operational methods of the Company and its customers or clients, contracts, financial or other data, technical data or any other confidential or proprietary information possessed, owned or used by the Company, the disclosure of which could or does have a material adverse effect on the Company, its business, any business it proposes to engage in, its operations, financial condition or prospects and that the same are confidential and proprietary and considered “confidential information” of the Company for the purposes of this Agreement. In consideration of his employment, Executive agrees that he will not, during or after the Term, without the consent of the Board make any disclosure of confidential information now or hereafter possessed by the Company, to any person, partnership, corporation or entity either during or after the term here of, except that nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to prohibit Executive from using or disclosing such information (a) if such disclosure is necessary in the normal course of the Company’s business in accordance with Company policies or instructions or authorization from the Board, (b) such information shall become public knowledge other than by or as a result of disclosure by a person not having a right to make such disclosure, or (c) subsequent to the Term, if such information shall have either (i) been developed by Executive independent of any of the Company’s confidential or proprietary information or (ii) been disclosed to Executive by a person not subject to a confidentiality agreement with or other obligation of confidentiality to the Company. For the purposes of Sections 6, 7 and 8 of this Agreement, the term “Company” shall include the Company, its parent, its subsidiaries and affiliates, other than affiliates whose relationship as an affiliate is derived solely from Executive’s interest in or position at the affiliate.
(b) In the event that any trade secrets or other confidential information covered by Section 6(a) of this Agreement is required to be produced by Executive pursuant to legal process, Executive shall give the Company notice of such legal process within a reasonable time, but not later than ten (10) business days prior to the date such disclosure is to be made, unless Executive has received less notice, in which event Executive shall immediately notify the Company. The Company shall have the right to object to any such disclosure, and if the Company objects (at the Company’s cost and expense) in a timely manner so that Executive is not subject to penalties for failure to make such disclosure, Executive shall not make any disclosure until there has been a court determination on the Company’s objections. If disclosure is required by a court order, final beyond right of review, or if the Company does not object to the disclosure, Executive shall make disclosure only to the extent that disclosure is unequivocally required by the court order, and Executive will exercise reasonable efforts at the Company’s expense, to obtain reliable assurance that confidential treatment will be accorded the Confidential Information.
Confidential and Proprietary Information 12.1 Consultant acknowledges that it and its employees or agents may, in the course of performing their responsibilities under this Agreement, be exposed to or acquire information that is confidential to County. Any and all information of any form obtained by Consultant or its employees or agents from County in the performance of this Agreement shall be deemed to be confidential information of County ("Confidential Information"). Any reports or other documents or items (including software) that result from the use of the Confidential Information by Consultant shall be treated with respect to confidentiality in the same manner as the Confidential Information. Confidential Information shall be deemed not to include information that (a) is or becomes (other than by disclosure by Consultant) publicly known or is contained in a publicly available document; (b) is rightfully in Consultant's possession without the obligation of nondisclosure prior to the time of its disclosure under this Agreement; or (c) is independently developed by employees or agents of Consultant who can be shown to have had no access to the Confidential Information.
12.2 Consultant agrees to hold Confidential Information in strict confidence, using at least the same degree of care that Consultant uses in maintaining the confidentiality of its own confidential information, and not to copy, reproduce, sell, assign, license, market, transfer or otherwise dispose of, give, or disclose Confidential Information to third parties or use Confidential Information for any purposes whatsoever other than the provision of Services to County hereunder, and to advise each of its employees and agents of their obligations to keep Confidential Information confidential. Consultant shall use its best efforts to assist County in identifying and preventing any unauthorized use or disclosure of any Confidential Information. Without limitation of the foregoing, Consultant shall advise County immediately in the event Consultant learns or has reason to believe that any person who has had access to Confidential Information has violated or intends to violate the terms of this Agreement and Consultant will at its expense cooperate with County in seeking injunctive or other equitable relief in the name of County or Consultant against any such person. Consultant agrees that, except as directed by County, Consultant will not at any time during or after the term of this Agreement disclose, directly or indirectly, any Confidential Information to any person, and that upon termination of this Agreement or at County's request, Consultant will promptly turn over to County all documents, papers, and other matter in Consultant’s possession which embody Confidential Information.
12.3 Consultant acknowledges that a breach of this Section, including disclosure of any Confidential Information, or disclosure of other information that, at law or in equity, ought to remain confidential, will give rise to irreparable injury to County that is inadequately compensable in damages. Accordingly, County may seek and obtain injunctive relief against the breach or threatened breach of the foregoing undertakings, in addition to any other legal remedies that may be available. Consultant acknowledges and agrees that the covenants contained herein are necessary for the protection of the legitimate business interest of County and are reasonable in scope and content.
12.4 Consultant in providing all services hereunder agrees to abide by the provisions of any applicable Federal or State Data Privacy Act.
12.5 Consultant expressly acknowledges that County is subject to the Texas Public Information Act, TEX. GOV’T CODE XXX. §§ 552.001 et seq., as amended, and notwithstanding any provision in the Agreement to the contrary, County will make any information related to the Agreement, or otherwise, available to third parties in accordance with the Texas Public Information Act. Any proprietary or confidential information marked as such provided to County by Consultant shall not be disclosed to any third party, except as directed by the Texas Attorney General in response to a request for such under the Texas Public Information Act, which provides for notice to the owner of such marked information and the opportunity for the owner of such information to notify the Attorney General of the reasons why such information should not be disclosed.
Data Access and Proprietary Information 6.1 The Fund acknowledges that the databases, computer programs, screen formats, report formats, interactive design techniques, and documentation manuals furnished to the Fund by the Transfer Agent as part of the Fund’s ability to access certain Fund Confidential Information maintained by the Transfer Agent on databases under the control and ownership of the Transfer Agent or other third party (“Data Access Services”) constitute copyrighted, trade secret, or other proprietary information of substantial value to the Transfer Agent or other third party (collectively, “Transfer Agent Proprietary Information”). In no event shall Transfer Agent Proprietary Information be deemed Fund Confidential Information. The Fund agrees to treat all Transfer Agent Proprietary Information as proprietary to the Transfer Agent and further agrees that it shall not divulge any Transfer Agent Proprietary Information to any person or organization except as may be provided hereunder. Without limiting the foregoing, the Fund agrees for itself and its employees and agents to:
(a) Use such programs and databases (i) solely on the Fund’s computers or on computers of Federated Services Company or its affiliates (collectively, “Fund Computers”), or (ii) solely from equipment at the location agreed to between the Fund and the Transfer Agent and (iii) solely in accordance with the Transfer Agent’s applicable user documentation;
(b) Refrain from copying or duplicating in any way (other than in the normal course of performing processing on the Fund Computers), the Transfer Agent Proprietary Information;
(c) Refrain from obtaining unauthorized access to any portion of the Transfer Agent Proprietary Information, and if such access is inadvertently obtained, to inform Transfer Agent in a timely manner of such fact and dispose of such information in accordance with the Transfer Agent’s instructions;
(d) Refrain from causing or allowing information transmitted from the Transfer Agent’s computer to the Fund’s terminal to be retransmitted to any other computer terminal or other device except as expressly permitted by the Transfer Agent (such permission not to be unreasonably withheld);
(e) Allow the Fund to have access only to those authorized transactions as agreed to between the Fund and the Transfer Agent; and
(f) Honor all reasonable written requests made by the Transfer Agent to protect at the Transfer Agent’s expense the rights of the Transfer Agent in the Transfer Agent Proprietary Information at common law, under federal copyright law and under other federal or state law.
6.2 The Fund shall take reasonable efforts to advise its employees of their obligations pursuant to this Section 6. The obligations of this Section shall survive any earlier termination of this Agreement.
6.3 If the Fund notifies the Transfer Agent that any of the Data Access Services do not operate in material compliance with the most recently issued user documentation for such services, the Transfer Agent shall use its best efforts in a timely manner to correct such failure. Organizations from which the Transfer Agent may obtain certain data included in the Data Access Services are solely responsible for the contents of such data and the Fund agrees to make no claim against the Transfer Agent arising out of the contents of such third-party data, including, but not limited to, the accuracy thereof; provided, however, that the Fund shall be entitled to insist that the Transfer Agent, and the Transfer Agent for the benefit of the Fund shall, enforce any and all rights under applicable contracts for the Data Access Services. SUBJECT TO THE FOREGOING OBLIGATIONS OF THE TRANSFER AGENT, DATA ACCESS SERVICES AND ALL COMPUTER PROGRAMS AND SOFTWARE SPECIFICATIONS USED IN CONNECTION THEREWITH ARE PROVIDED ON AN AS IS, AS AVAILABLE BASIS. EXCEPT AS OTHERWISE PROVIDED HEREIN TO THE CONTRARY, THE TRANSFER AGENT EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
6.4 If the transactions available to the Fund include the ability to originate Proper Instructions through electronic instructions to the Transfer Agent in order to: (i) effect the transfer or movement of cash or Shares; or (ii) transmit Shareholder information or other information, then in such event the Transfer Agent shall be entitled to rely on the validity and authenticity of such Proper Instructions without undertaking any further inquiry as long as such Proper Instruction is undertaken in conformity with applicable security procedures.
Confidential Information Intellectual Property You acknowledge and agree that, as a result of your employment, you will have access to trade secrets and other confidential or proprietary information of the Company and its customers and vendors (“Confidential Information”). Such information includes, but is not limited to: (i) customers and clients and customer or client lists, (ii) accounting and business methods, (iii) services or products and the marketing of such services and products, (iv) fees, costs and pricing structures, (v) designs, (vi) analysis, (vii) drawings, photographs and reports, (viii) computer software, including operating systems, applications and program listings, (ix) flow charts, manuals and documentation, (x) databases, (xi) inventions, devices, new developments, methods and processes, whether patentable or unpatentable and whether or not reduced to practice, (xii) copyrightable works, (xiii) all technology and trade secrets, and (xiv) all similar and related information in whatever form. You agree that you shall not disclose or use at any time, either during your employment with the Company or thereafter, any Confidential Information, except to the extent that such disclosure or use is directly related to the Company’s business, or unless required to by law, or unless and to the extent that the Confidential Information in question has become generally known to and available for use by the public other than as a result of your acts or omissions to act. In addition, you further agree that any invention, design or innovation that you conceive or devise from your use of Company time, equipment, facilities or support services belong exclusively to the Company, and that it may not be used for your personal benefit, the benefit of a competitor, or for the benefit of any person or entity other than the Company.
Confidentiality and Proprietary Information 9.1 For the purposes of this Agreement, Confidential Information (“Confidential Information”) means confidential or proprietary technical or business information given by one Party (the “Discloser”) to the other (the “Recipient”). All information which is disclosed by one Party to the other in connection with this Agreement, during negotiations and the term of this Agreement will not be deemed Confidential Information to the Discloser and subject to this Section 9, unless the confidentiality of the information is confirmed in writing by the Discloser prior to disclosure. The Recipient agrees (i) to use Confidential Information only for the purpose of performing under this Agreement, (ii) to hold it in confidence and disclose it to no one other than its employees having a need to know for the purpose of performing under this Agreement, and (iii) to safeguard it from unauthorized use or disclosure using at least the same degree of care with which the Recipient safeguards its own Confidential Information. If the Recipient wishes to disclose the Discloser's Confidential Information to a third-party agent or consultant, such disclosure must be agreed to in writing by the Discloser, and the agent or consultant must have executed a written agreement of nondisclosures and nonuse comparable in scope to the terms of this section.
9.2 The Recipient may make copies of Confidential Information only as reasonably necessary to perform its obligations under this Agreement. All such copies will be subject to the same restrictions and protections as the original and will bear the same copyright and proprietary rights notices as are contained on the original.
9.3 The Recipient agrees to return all Confidential Information in tangible form received from the Discloser, including any copies made by the Recipient, within thirty (30) days after a written request is delivered to the Recipient, or to destroy all such Confidential Information if directed to do so by Discloser except for Confidential Information that the Recipient reasonably requires to perform its obligations under this Agreement; the Recipient shall certify destruction by written letter to the Discloser. If either Party loses or makes an unauthorized disclosure of the Party’s Confidential Information, it will notify such other Party immediately and use its best efforts to retrieve the lost or wrongfully disclosed information.
9.4 The Recipient shall have no obligation to safeguard Confidential Information: (i) which was in the possession of the Recipient free of restriction prior to its receipt from the Discloser; (ii) after it becomes publicly known or available through no breach of this Agreement by the Recipient; (iii) after it is rightfully acquired by the Recipient free of restrictions on its discloser; (iv) after it is independently developed by personnel of the Recipient to whom the Discloser's Confidential Information had not been previously disclosed. In addition, either Party will have the right to disclose Confidential Information to any mediator, arbitrator, state or federal regulatory body, or a court in the conduct of any mediation, arbitration or approval of this Agreement, as long as, in the absence of an applicable protective order, the Discloser has been previously notified by the Recipient in time sufficient for the Recipient to undertake all lawful measures to avoid disclosing such confidential information and for Discloser to have reasonable time to seek or negotiate a protective order before or with any applicable mediator, arbitrator, state or regulatory body or a court.
9.5 The Parties recognize that an individual End User may simultaneously seek to become or be a customer of both Parties. Nothing in this Agreement is intended to limit the ability of either Party to use customer specific information lawfully obtained from End Users or sources other than the Discloser.
9.6 Each Party’s obligations to safeguard Confidential Information disclosed prior to expiration or termination of this Agreement will survive such expiration or termination.
9.7 No license is hereby granted under any patent, trademark, or copyright, nor is any such license implied solely by virtue or the disclosure of any Confidential Information.
9.8 Each Party agrees that the Discloser may be irreparably injured by a disclosure in breach of this Agreement by the Recipient or its representatives and the Discloser will be entitled to seek equitable relief, including injunctive relief and specific performance, in the event of any breach or threatened breach of the confidentiality provisions of this Agreement. Such remedies will not be deemed to be the exclusive remedies for a breach of this Agreement, but will be in addition to all other remedies available at law or in equity.
Proprietary Information and Inventions You agree to execute, deliver and be bound by the provisions of the Proprietary Information and Inventions Agreement attached hereto as Exhibit C.
CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY INFORMATION The parties may provide technical information, documentation and expertise to each other that is either (1) marked as being confidential or, (2) if delivered in oral form is summarized in writing within 10 working days and identified as being confidential (“Confidential Information”). The receiving party shall for a period of five (5) years from the date of disclosure (i) hold the disclosing party’s Confidential Information in strict confidence, and (ii), except as previously authorized in writing by the disclosing party, not publish or disclose the disclosing party’s Confidential Information to anyone other than the receiving party’s employees on a need-to-know basis, and (iii) use the disclosing party’s Confidential Information solely for performance of this Contract. The foregoing requirement shall not apply to any portion of a party’s Confidential Information which (a) becomes publicly known through no wrongful act or omission on the part of the receiving party; (b) is already known to the receiving party at the time of the disclosure without similar nondisclosure obligations; (c) is rightfully received by the receiving party from a third party without similar nondisclosure obligations; (d) is approved for release by written authorization of the disclosing party; (e) is clearly demonstrated by the receiving party to have been independently developed by the receiving party without access to the disclosing party’s Confidential Information; or (f) is required to be disclosed by order of a court or governmental body or by applicable law, provided that the party intending to make such required disclosure shall promptly notify the other party of such intended disclosure in order to allow such party to seek a protective order or other remedy.
Proprietary Information The Software, any data base and any proprietary data, processes, information and documentation made available to the Fund (other than which are or become part of the public domain or are legally required to be made available to the public) (collectively, the “Information”), are the exclusive and confidential property of Custodian or its suppliers. The Fund shall keep the Information confidential by using the same care and discretion that the Fund uses with respect to its own confidential property and trade secrets, but not less than reasonable care. Upon termination of the Agreement or the Software license granted herein for any reason, the Fund shall return to Custodian any and all copies of the Information which are in its possession or under its control.
CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY EXECUTION VERSION
Confidential Information and Trade Secrets During the period of my employment with the Company, I acknowledge that the Company may disclose to me confidential and proprietary information of the Company which the Company takes great pains to safeguard from unauthorized use and disclosure. I agree at all times during the term of my employment and thereafter, to hold in strictest confidence, and not to use or to disclose to any person, firm or corporation, except as such use or disclosure is required in connection with my work for the Company or unless the Chief Executive Officer of the Company otherwise expressly authorizes in writing, any Confidential Information (defined below) before it has become generally known within the relevant industry through no fault of my own. I understand and agree that “Confidential Information” means any non-public information that does not otherwise qualify as Trade Secrets (defined below) that relates to the actual or demonstrably anticipated business or research or development of the Company or any other information which is marked “confidential” or which might reasonably be anticipated to be confidential in nature. I further agree, at all times during my employment and anytime thereafter, to hold in strictest confidence, and not to use or disclose to any person, firm or corporation, except as such use or disclosure is required in connection with my work for the Company or unless the Chief Executive Officer of the Company expressly authorizes such use or disclosure in writing, any Trade Secret (defined below) before it has become generally known in the public domain through no fault of my own. I understand and agree that “Trade Secrets” are information, regardless of form, belonging to the Company, licensed by it, or disclosed to it on a confidential basis by its customers, suppliers, or other third parties, including, but not limited to technical and non-technical data, formulae, patterns, compilations, programs, devices, methods, techniques, drawings, processes, financial data, financial plans, product plans, and lists of actual or potential customers or suppliers which is not commonly known in the public domain and which (i) derives economic value, economic or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable by proper means by, other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use; and (ii) is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy, or any other information that constitutes a trade secret under common law.
