Do you know any employees who are unhappy?  Who feel they aren't being treated right?  Who want to show the company a thing or two?  Perhaps they're like Joya Williams.

Her story starts at a Thanksgiving dinner in 2005 in Georgia.  Joya Williams pulled family friend Edmund Duhaney away from the turkey, greens and candied sweet potatoes.  She wanted to talk about something in private.
 
Joya Williams worked at Coca-Cola as an executive assistant.  She was upset.  They weren't treating her right.  And she wanted to do something about it.  She showed Duhaney confidential Coca-Cola marketing documents.  She showed him a product sample for a new Coca-Cola drink.  She had memory sticks with more confidential information. 
 
She told Duhaney she couldn't do anything with this confidential information.  She had signed a non-disclosure confidentiality agreement. 

But Duhaney could.  He could use this information to get money from another company.  This kind of thing happens all the time in corporate America, she said. 
 
Duhaney called his friend Ibrahim Dimson in New York.  In April 2006, Dimson flew to Atlanta to meet with Williams and Duhaney.  Dimson knew what to do.  He and Duhaney bought a black Armani roller bag to hold the documents.  He told Williams to get some Coca-Cola envelopes. 
 
In May, Dimson wrote a letter to a senior VP at PepsiCo in Purchase, New York.  Dimson said he was a high-level Coca-Cola employee. He called himself Dirk and provided his cell phone number.  He said he had "very detailed and confidential information about Coca-Cola's marketing campaigns for the next four years."  He was "looking to deliver [the information] to the highest bidder." 
 
A few weeks later a man named Jerry called Dirk.  He said he was an agent for PepsiCo and was interested in buying the information. 
 
They arranged to meet at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport in June.  At the airport, Jerry gave Dirk a yellow Girl Scout cookie box containing $30,000.  Dirk gave Jerry the Armani roller bag stuffed with Coca-Cola documents and a product sample.
  
Jerry and Dirk met again at the restaurant of a Marriott hotel in Atlanta on July 5, 2006.  Dirk gave Jerry a list of 20 more items - documents, product samples - that he was ready to sell.  They negotiated a purchase price of $1.5 million dollars for all of the items.
 
It seemed that the 8 month conspiracy was about to pay off. 
 
But Joya Williams and her comrades in crime never saw the money. 

Jerry, in a general sort of way, was an agent for PepsiCo, but more specifically, he was an undercover FBI agent.  When PepsiCo got the letter from Dirk, it turned it over to Coca-Cola.  Joya and her crew were all arrested after the Marriott meeting.  In the end, Joya Williams, the former Coca-Cola secretary, was sentenced to 8 years in jail for conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets.
 
Williams was caught.  Many are not.  In fact, a 2002 study by the American Society of Industrial Security found that the survey participants - 1600 companies - faced intellectual property losses of more than $50 billion during the one year time period ending June 30, 2001. 

$50 billion in losses.
 
What about you?  Could this happen to you, your company, your clients?  Are your employees selling you out?

Here are five best practices that will help you guide your employees to avoid infringement and misuse of company rights.

1.  Include intellectual property guidelines in your employee manual and policy.  Inform employees about the company's protected IP rights and the oblgations of the employees to protect those rights.

2.  Provide ongoing training and education to employees about IP rights so they know what is permitted and what is not.  Cover the need to avoid improper downloading of images, content and music.  Inform them about the need and importance of keeping information secret.

3.  Be vigilant about employee conduct.  Employees should understand that work computers and email may be monitored.  Confront employee misuse of IP early.  Don't ignore infringement of the rights of others.

4.  Work together with other departments in your company to create and implement sound IP practices.  Too often the relevant stakeholders - legal, marketing, R&D, financial, IT and HR - exist in their own narrow silo without working together.  Encourage cooperation.

5.  Finally, treat employees well.  Empower them to make good choices about IP.  Most people, if given the knowledge and means, will do the right thing.

 Mark V.B. Partridge, author, speaker and attorney, works with companies that want to protect their brand and with business leaders who want to use IP to increase the value of their company.  For more information and FREE resources visit the website www.GuidingRights.com.