Greenberg Traurig LLP issued the following announcement on Jan. 16.
Global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP released Episode 15 of its Trade Secret Law Evolution Podcast, “What Constitutes a Trade Secret, the Meaning of Misappropriation, and Uniform Trade Secret Act ‘Preemption.’”
Greenberg Traurig Shareholders Jordan D. Grotzinger and Ashley M. Farrell Pickett discuss factors bearing on whether information is sufficiently “unknown” to constitute a trade secret and examine the meaning of misappropriation. Grotzinger and Farrell Pickett also address the doctrine of trade secret “preemption.”
Key takeaways include:
- Consider the Restatement factors, in addition to the statutory elements of a trade secret, when arguing that something is or is not a trade secret.
- Information generated from independent sources is generally not a trade secret. This is consistent with the rule that reverse engineering is permissible under trade secret law.
- General language in a contract prohibiting disclosure of a business’s information will not automatically render that info a trade secret. If you want to protect information, your contract language and policies should be reasonably specific (e.g., a corporate policy that certain kinds of information or documents should be treated confidentially).
- Misappropriation requires more than use of information a defendant learned on the job with the plaintiff. The information must have been acquired by improper means or under circumstances imposing a duty to maintain secrecy.
- Uniform Trade Secret Act “preempts claims based on the same nucleus of facts as trade secret misappropriation.”
The Trade Secret Law Evolution Podcast was created by Grotzinger, who co-chairs Greenberg Traurig’s Los Angeles Litigation Practice. Grotzinger is a business trial lawyer focusing on trade secret law, consumer class action defense, financial services, and entertainment litigation in federal and state courts.
Original source can be found here.