The Defend Trade Secrets Act: Arrival of the Trade Secret Trolls?
Stephen Anderson A new bill that is currently facing Congress, the Defend Trade Secrets Act, is aimed at creating a federal private cause of action under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (EEA). It is a bill that will, if passed, expand the EEA to provide federal jurisdiction for the theft of trade secrets. There is no question as to the degree of importance the protection of trade secrets is to United States businesses and society at large. The question is whether the well-intentioned DTSA will actually do more harm than good. There are a substantial number of legal professionals...
Criminal Consequences of Trade Secret Misappropriation: Does the Economic Espionage Act Insulate Trade Secrets From Theft and Render Civil Remedies Obsolete?
Mark D. Seltzer; Angela A. Burns The enactment of the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (“EEA”) was greeted with great fanfare as an unprecedented and broad federal attack on foreign and domestic trade secret misappropriation. Negligent, even inadvertent conversions of trade secrets seemed subject to criminal prosecution in the broad wake of the statute. The statute’s draconian criminal penalties for individual and corporate offenders alike, coupled with its license to the Government to seek protective orders, civil injunctive relief, and forfeiture, were viewed as the preferred remedy for the victim of trade secret misappropriation. Yet the plain language of the...