Last June, I published an article in The Legal explaining the then newly enacted Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA). The article focused on the impact the DTSA would have on trade secret litigation. This article discusses a couple of notable developments involving the DTSA in the year since its enactment.
What is the DTSA?
The DTSA is the first federal law to create a private right of action for the misappropriation of trade secrets. Before the DTSA, the Uniform Law Commission proposed the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) in an effort to provide uniformity of trade secret law across the nation and streamline trade secret litigation. Unfortunately, the UTSA did not accomplish its intended effect, as many states adopted only portions of the UTSA, while customizing other sections of the act. As a result, the application and interpretation of this “uniform” law across states was often inconsistent.
