New Trade Secret Bills Will Help Fight Competitors and Sneaky Ex-employees

The Defend Trade Secrets Act and the Trade Secrets Protection Act are both bipartisan bills that have been introduced in recent months to Congress to hopefully provide a remedy for trade secret misappropriation. Both amend the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. As of September 17, 2014 the Trade Secrets Protection Act has been approved by the House Judiciary Committee and is presumably moving toward a full House vote. Copyrights, patents, and trademarks are already covered by Federal protection, trade secrets, however, are not. These bills would finally extend Federal civil protection to these trade secrets. If the new bills are passed, they would provide new, better tools and leverage with which to fight competitors and the occasional former employees. Some of this would include:

1. Trade secret law across the country would be uniform.
2. Procedures for ex parte seizure of evidence.
3. Statute of limitations will be longer.
4. Increased recoverable damages.
5. Direct access to Federal Courts
6. Strong statement that trade secret protection is an important U.S. public policy.

See http://www.jdsupra.c...campaign=legalalerts for more information.