We’ve covered denial of insurance coverage for trade secret misappropriation and affirming insurance coverage for copyright infringement. Now we turn our attention to the newer kid on the insurance block, cyber insurance.

Last week’s blog covered a situation where an insurance company wasn’t required to cover the costs of defending a misappropriation of trade secrets case. This week’s blog covers a situation where the insurance company was required to cover the cost of defense of an Intellectual Property dispute.

If you like Sour Jacks and/or Welch’s Fruit Snacks, a lot goes on behind the scenes for your sugar pleasure. Promotion In Motion, Inc. or PIM holds the formulas and manufacturing process for the sugary snacks as trade secrets. PIM also owns the design of the packaging. Ferrara Pan Candy Co. manufactured and sold the sugar bombs for PIM from 1990 to 2014 pursuant to a confidentiality agreement and license.

Roughly one in six emergency room or hospital visits results in surprise billing, although the odds vary significantly depending on where you live. Such charges can be significant as the out-of-network doctor typically charges a full “list price” for services. Consumer bankruptcies have resulted because in some cases surprise billing has amounted to tens of thousands of dollars.

My advertising injury may not be your advertising injury. %CUT% Many general business insurance policies cover defense of claims for ‘advertising injury.’ But what does that mean exactly? This comes up when the insured is sued for IP infringement and tenders the defense to the insurance company. Then the insurance company refuses to defend the claim because it doesn’t fit into the definition of advertising injury. In recent cases, the courts were able to give some guidance on how to analyze the duty to defend "advertising injury". Here are a few examples. In Diamond State Insurance v. 21 Century, the court held that defendant’s false and misleading statements in telephone calls to its competitor’s customers fell within the definition of advertising injury. In Sentry Insurance v. Provide Commerce Inc., the court held that the defendant’s use of Google search terms to redirect users to a competitor’s website could conceivably fall within the definition of advertising injury. In Mid-Continent Cas. Co. v. Kipp Flores Architects LLC, the court held that claims for copyright infringement stemming from an advertising idea were covered. In Sentinel Insurance Co. Ltd. v. ITD, the court held that claims of trade secret misappropriation do not fall within the definition of advertising injury.