Trade Secrets, ET, And The ITC

The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has broad power to issue exclusion orders blocking the importation of goods determined to have infringed or misappropriated complainants' IP rights. Moreover, the ITC's in rem jurisdiction allows it to prohibit the importation of products developed through trade secret misappropriation, even where the misappropriation was extraterritorial (ET) and took place entirely outside of the United States. Thus, the ITC offers complainants a powerful injunctive remedy for trade secret theft occurring outside the U.S.

Late last month, Samsung Display Company (SDC) filed a complaint (No. 337-3704) in the ITC alleging that China's BOE Technology Group stole trade secrets concerning organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). By way of example, the complaint alleges that the Apple I-Phone 14 display uses SDC OLED technology stolen by BOE. It also points to the criminal convictions of BOE executives in South Korea for the theft of Samsung's