Trade Secret Disputes

I. Introduction Trade secrets law is concerned with the protection of technological and commercial information not generally known in the trade against unauthorized commercial use by others. The policy basis for trade secret protection is the desire to encourage research and development by providing protection to the originator of business information, and to maintain proper standards of business ethics. See Kewanee Oil...

Trade Secret Audits

Depending on the type of business involved, a business should decide what types of information should be protected as trade secrets. Once this decision has been made, the relevant information must be located within the business. This audit is a helpful step in the process of identifying trade secrets. One author{1} indicates, “another technique for identifying trade secrets is to send a memorandum to all department heads...

Trade Secrets Posted To Internet

Religious Technology Center v. Lerma{1} dealt with the effect of postings on the Internet. Two postings had been made by a disgruntled former church member ten days before the Church of Scientology obtained a TRO. The Virginia district court found that the Internet posting made the information generally known at least to the relevant people in the new group. The court reasoned that although the person originally posting the...

Trade Secret Law and Economic Espionage Act of 199...

Economic Espionage Act of 1996 The Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (the “EEA”, now codified in 18 U.S.C. §§1831-1839) has created an important change in the law relating to the protection of trade secrets; namely, it provides for trade secret protection at the federal level. Specifically, the EEA was enacted as a federal criminal statute and, as such, it is enforced by the U.S. Department of Justice and its U.S....