Robert Yoches and Michelle Rice of Finnegan explore some of the
recent requirements laid down by US courts.
Since the enactment of the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016
(DTSA), trade secret cases have increased by 30 percent, but courts
have dismissed about 14 percent of those cases on the pleadings or
through summary judgment. In many cases, trade-secret owners lost
because they failed to show they used reasonable efforts to protect
the confidentiality of their secrets.
Whether a trade secret owner's measures to protect its
secrets are reasonable depends on the facts of each case, making it
impossible to identify specific actions that will ensure a
company's trade secret rights will survive dismissals, but
recent cases have highlighted some pitfalls to avoid.
