The Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) was one of the biggest legal changes in intellectual property law since the passage of the Lanham Act in 1948. It created a new federal cause of action for trade secret misappropriation. Now for the first time, litigants can bring a cause of action in federal court without asserting diversity or concurrent jurisdiction. Defend Trade Secrets Act Handbook, Third Edition, covers every aspect of the law, and most importantly not only intricately analyzes the DTSA, but puts it within the context of the existing law. It provides all the necessary analysis, primary source material, and forms to jumpstart your knowledge of this new statute and its implications.
The important revisions to the Third Edition include the following:
- Expanded discussion of attempts and conspiracies as they relate to EEA investigations. Of note is discussion of cases from the Ninth Circuit and the Northern District of Illinois.
- A new subsection discussing duplicitous charges by the government.
- An important trend that is apparent from the EEA cases brought to date is the high percentage that involves a Chinese connection, in that the person stealing the trade secret was of Chinese descent or did so in connection with a company from the People s Republic of China ( PRC ) or planned to take the technology information to the PRC. This trend is examined.
- The Federal Circuit reiterated longstanding precedent that only a special and small category of cases involving state law claims, such as those requiring resolution of a substantial patent question, give rise to federal subject matter jurisdiction. Cases in which a party uses patent infringement as evidence of trade secret misappropriation, such as the present one, do not constitute such a category. The 2020 case, Intellisoft, Ltd. v. Acer America Corp., is examined.
- A new subsection discussing the unclean hands doctrine. In Scherer Design Group, LLC v. Ahead Engineering LLC, the Third Circuit affirmed that a district court retains jurisdiction to grant equitable relief even if the elements of the unclean hands doctrine are met.
- A new subsection exploring the Communications Decency Act which provides that no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider, and that no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with this section.
- Important updates to the strategic defense of a trade secrets case chart including topics such as standing and the seizure process.
- The more recent cases addressing trade secret status for compilations often relate to electronically stored databases. Such databases drive a significant share of modern business operations, and while their constituent parts are frequently available and gathered from public sources, these vast compendia are usually expensive to build and maintain, and they often provide great value to their creators.
