Carl Zeiss Meditec Sues, Seeks Protection of Proprietary Information

Carl Zeiss Meditec (CZMI) announced it recently filed a lawsuit against a former senior sales executive who is now employed by the company’s direct competitor, Optovue.

The company filed the suit June 7 in Massachusetts, alleging that the executive, while employed by CZMI, transmitted confidential and proprietary company information to Optovue and engaged in a variety of prohibited actions during and subsequent to his CZMI employment. It requests that he be prohibited from engaging in such conduct and ordered to return and make no use of CZMI’s confidential and proprietary information and seeks remedies and awards.

Optovue then initiated litigation against CZMI June 11 in federal court in the Northern District of California, CZMI said. The filing alleges that there is a controversy between Optovue and CZMI regarding whether Optovue engaged in certain acts of unfair competition, and claims that Optovue did not engage in such conduct, according to CZMI.

An Optovue representative could not be reached for comment by press time.