An Open Letter to the Sponsors of the Revised Defend Trade Secrets Act

Abstract

We write to express our continued concerns about the Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”) and our willingness to assist you in determining how best to improve enforcement of legitimate trade secret rights. Unfortunately, the new DTSA appears to simply combine many of the provisions of the two pieces of legislation that were introduced in 2014 (S. 2267 and H.R. 5233). As a result, it addresses few of the concerns raised in the January 2015 article and the August 2014 letter. Moreover, the sponsors have failed to explain how the DTSA improves existing trade secret law, nor how it will specifically address the harms that it purports to mitigate. Thus, the August 2014 letter and January 2015 article remain highly relevant to an analysis of the DTSA’s benefits and drawbacks.

Keywords: trade secrets, innovation, cyberespionage, cybersecurity, intellectual property

JEL Classification: K1