President Obama Signs Federal Defend Trade Secrets Act

On May 11, 2016 – after years of bipartisan negotiation resulting in widespread support from both sides of the political aisle, as well as from the business community – President Obama signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA), the long-proposed legislation that establishes a federal trade secrets law.

Before the DTSA, companies seeking civil remedies for misappropriation of their trade secrets were generally limited to state law enforcement. Although 48 states have adopted the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) in some form, there are significant differences among the states in the application of the UTSA. Moreover, companies were usually limited to litigating in state court, except in cases where federal diversity jurisdiction exists. Some jurisdictions, but not others, had allow federal courts to hear trade secret claims along with claims under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act where employees exceeded their authorization to access trade secret materials from their company computers. In short, there was no consistent nationwide scheme for enforcement of trade secret protection.

The DTSA amends the federal Economic Espionage Act of 1996 to create, for the first time, a federal civil remedy for the misappropriation of trade secrets.

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The U.S. Senate passed on a unanimous 87-0 vote the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 late Monday.

The bill will create a civil cause of action in federal court for trade secret misappropriation and provide remedies that are not available in state court trade secret actions.

Like patents, trademarks, and copyrights, trade secret owners may seek redress for intellectual property theft based on a federal statutory right in federal court should the bill become law. Additionally, the bill provides for the availability of orders that will allow trade secret owners to have law enforcement seize stolen trade secrets without notice to the misappropriator upon a sufficient showing to the federal court.

Senate bill, have indicated that the bill will harmonize federal law and give businesses more consistent legal protections when their trade secrets are stolen.

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The content in this post was found at http://www.tradesecretslaw.com/2016/04/articles/trade-secrets/new-year-new-progress-2016-update-on-defend-trade-secrets-act-eu-directive/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TradingSecrets+%28Trading+Secrets%29 and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

Trade Secrets Law

November 5, 2015

Guest Author for Trade Secrets Law

As a special feature of our blog—special guest postings by experts, clients, and other professionals—please enjoy this blog entry from Stroz Friedberg, a global leader of cybersecurity, investigations and risk management. The firm recently launched Strategic Intellectual Property Protection Services (SIPPS), an offering Stroz Friedberg designed to help companies best handle intellectual property throughout its lifecycle.

-Robert Milligan, Editor of Trading Secrets

Across industries ranging from pharma to entertainment to electronics, the success of an organization is often directly tied to its intellectual property. However, many companies don’t effectively determine whether their products or internally developed solutions constitute protected intellectual property until there is a need for enforcement action.

It’s better (and easier) for a company to identify its intellectual property and trade secrets at the outset than it is for a company to retrofit its intellectual property and trade secrets to a bad event. Waiting until intellectual property is misappropriated delays enforcement, and is generally less successful overall than defining intellectual property early on. After identification, it is also important for an organization continually to evaluate how it safeguards its intellectual property. If a company proactively identifies and protects its trade secrets, enforcement efforts, if necessary, will prove much easier—even more so when a detailed response plan is already in place.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/obama-praises-trans-pacific-partnership-accord-as-full-text-is-released/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

Trade partners negotiating the Tans-Pacific Partnership trade deal have reached an agreement. The agreement details have not been released, and likely will not be submitted to Congress for a mandatory review for at least a month, perhaps longer… Presently the United States provides 12 years of data exclusivity for these types of medicines, but the TPP agreement reportedly knocks that term of protection down to 5 years. While the term of data exclusivity is not one in the same with reducing the term of market exclusivity, there is little doubt that more limited data exclusivity would likely lead to significant negative consequences for the bio-pharma industry.

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by Guest Blogger Marketa Trimble

The leaked draft of the Trade in Services Agreement (“TiSA”) – the agreement that is being negotiated by a number of countries, including the United States – has attracted intense criticism: Glyn Moody on ArsTechnica UK called TiSA “the more evil sibling of TTIP and TPP,” and John Nichols in The Nation charged that TiSA is “using trade as a smokescreen to limit citizen rights.” Evgeny Morozov and the EFF have pointed to the heavy influence of industry in the negotiations and warned that the negotiations do not take into account the interests of all stakeholders. The EFF criticized TiSA repeatedly, for example for the secrecy of its negotiations, for the limits that it would place on countries’ “enacting free and open source software mandates,” and also for the “prohibition of local hosting mandates” that would compromise data privacy.

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The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2015/09/local-hosting-and-the-draft-trade-in-services-agreement-guest-blog-post.htm and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

The stark reality of how government operates leaves us with a patent system that will be perpetually on the brink. Giant corporations have become effectively insulated from any consequences associated with stealing patented innovations, yet they continually want more and more help from Congress, which they dress up and roll out as “reform.” Even if they fail this time these companies will return, with more lobbyists and special interest groups demagoguing innovators as inherently evil, Satan practically. Rather than recognize the critical role patents play in the innovation ecosystem and in the U.S. economy, Congress is poised to flush the patent system down the drain because there are a handful of giant tech corporations that believe they would benefit.

The post Fat cats have the patent system perpetually on the brink appeared first on IPWatchdog.com | Patents & Patent Law.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/authors-guild-demands-isps-monitor-filter-internet-of-pirated-goods/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

Fortunately, Congress is taking notice. In an effort to crack down on the overuse of employee non-compete restrictions, several Senators are sponsoring S. 1504, the “Mobility and Opportunity for Vulnerable Employees Act” (or MOVE Act).

The Act has two main provisions. First, the Act makes it illegal to impose non-compete restrictions on “low-wage” employees, generally defined as employees earning less than $15/hour (or minimum wage, if higher) or an annual salary of $31,200. These dollar thresholds escalate over time. Second, for all other employees working in interstate commerce, the law requires employers to disclose that they will require non-compete restrictions early in the job search process. The Act says such disclosure should be “at the beginning of the process for hiring such employee.” Violations are enforced by the Department of Labor.

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Those who deal with the office said its outdated technology and procedures increasingly interfere with their ability to buy, sell and protect copyrighted works.

Now, some in Congress are pushing to modernize the Copyright Office, taking it from a 19th century relic that operates out of a cramped, paper-strewn office into a government office that can efficiently address the needs of the trillion-dollar U.S. copyright industry.

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The content in this post was found at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-copyright-office-20150623-story.html and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.