In 2016, Congress enacted the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) to create a private right of action for trade secret misappropriation under federal law. DTSA was intended to provide uniformity among the various state trade secret laws. See H.R. Rep. No. 114-529 at 200 (2016) (DTSA intended “to provide a single, national standard for trade secret misappropriation with clear rules and predictability for everyone involved”). But inconsistencies among the various regional circuits’ application of DTSA have emerged in multiple areas, including the applicability of the inevitable disclosure doctrine, the sufficiency of early disclosure of trade secrets and the appropriate measure of damages.

This article focuses on the split on the inevitable disclosure doctrine and recent developments indicating how New York is likely to come out on the issue.

State Split on Adoption of the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine