{"id":1362,"date":"2018-09-03T14:04:42","date_gmt":"2018-09-03T18:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesslaw.smithrayl.com\/blog\/?p=1362"},"modified":"2023-11-28T13:42:04","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T18:42:04","slug":"defend-trade-secrets-act-are-your-employment-agreements-up-to-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hpindiana.law\/business-blog\/defend-trade-secrets-act-are-your-employment-agreements-up-to-date\/","title":{"rendered":"Defend Trade Secrets Act:  Are Your Employment Agreements Up to Date?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Until recently, almost all trade secret law was furnished by state law, not federal law. Absent federal diversity jurisdiction, lawsuits for misappropriation of trade secrets had to be brought in state court. Even though the vast <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uniformlaws.org\/Act.aspx?title=Trade%20Secrets%20Act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">majority of states<\/a> (including <a href=\"https:\/\/iga.in.gov\/legislative\/laws\/2018\/ic\/titles\/024#24-2-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Indiana<\/a>) have adopted the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uniformlaws.org\/shared\/docs\/trade%20secrets\/utsa_final_85.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Uniform Trade Secrets Act<\/a> (\u201cUTSA\u201d), there are nonetheless variations in trade secret law from one state to another. However, in May 2016 President Obama signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act (or \u201cDTSA\u201d), creating at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/18\/1836\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">18\u00a0U.S.C.\u00a0\u00a7\u00a01836<\/a> a new federal civil cause of action for misappropriation of trade secrets.\u00a0 Even so, the federal statute does not pre-empt state law, and state causes of action under the UTSA remain viable.<\/p>\n<p><u>Definitions of Trade Secret and Misappropriation<\/u><\/p>\n<p>Two crucial components of trade secret law are the definitions of trade secret and misappropriation.\u00a0 The DTSA definitions, found at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/18\/1839\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">18 U.S.C.\u00a0\u00a7\u00a01839<\/a>, are not identical to the familiar UTSA definitions, but there are no major surprises. At least for the most part, information that is a trade secret under the UTSA is also a trade secret under the DTSA, and vice versa.\u00a0 Similarly, there are likely very few acts that qualify as misappropriation under one statute but not the other.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hpindiana.law\/business-blog\/defend-trade-secrets-act-are-your-employment-agreements-up-to-date\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Defend Trade Secrets Act:  Are Your Employment Agreements Up to Date?\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Until recently, almost all trade secret law was furnished by state law, not federal law. Absent federal diversity jurisdiction, lawsuits for misappropriation of trade secrets had to be brought in state court. Even though the vast majority of states (including Indiana) have adopted the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (\u201cUTSA\u201d), there are nonetheless variations in trade [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contract-law","category-employment-law","category-trademarks-copyrights-trade-secrets"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Defend Trade Secrets Act: Are Your Employment Agreements Up to Date? &#8212; Indiana Business Law Blog &#8212; September 3, 2018<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&nbsp; Until recently, almost all trade secret law was furnished by state law, not federal law. Absent federal diversity jurisdiction, lawsuits for &#8212; September 3, 2018\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hpindiana.law\/business-blog\/defend-trade-secrets-act-are-your-employment-agreements-up-to-date\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Michael R. Smith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Defend Trade Secrets Act: Are Your Employment Agreements Up to Date? &#8212; Indiana Business Law Blog &#8212; September 3, 2018","description":"&nbsp; Until recently, almost all trade secret law was furnished by state law, not federal law. Absent federal diversity jurisdiction, lawsuits for &#8212; September 3, 2018","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.hpindiana.law\/business-blog\/defend-trade-secrets-act-are-your-employment-agreements-up-to-date\/","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Michael R. Smith","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.hpindiana.law\/business-blog\/defend-trade-secrets-act-are-your-employment-agreements-up-to-date\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.hpindiana.law\/business-blog\/defend-trade-secrets-act-are-your-employment-agreements-up-to-date\/"},"author":{"name":"Michael R. 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