On May 11th, President Obama signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (“DTSA”) into law. It is an amendment to the Economic Espionage Act and provides a new, federal court civil claim for acts of trade secret misappropriation that occur on or after May 11, 2016.
Most states have statutes providing a state law claim for trade secret misappropriation. However, there are significant substantive and procedural variations in trade secret law from state to state. Now, with the passage of the DTSA, trade secret owners have a truly uniform federal law under which to pursue trade secret misappropriation claims. The DTSA has a number of key features of interest to employers:
