Patent Office Director Says New Trade Secret Law Is A Game-Changer

The theft of trade secrets may be the biggest transfer of wealth in history and likely costs U.S. innovators $300 billion a year, according to the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trade office. Writing on the popular Huffington Post, Michelle K. Lee called trade secrets the “secret sauce” of American innovation and said that with the Defend Trade Secrets Act, signed by President Obama this week, trade secrets now have important new protections. Formerly, this was an area handled by a patchwork of state laws, but this law creates for the first time a federal civil cause of action for trade secret theft. “Greater access to the federal courts will provide tools when seeking to prevent the transit of trade secrets out of the country and to effect service country-wide,” she writes. “The newly created federal civil cause of action strengthens U.S. trade secret protection, with a choice for the parties between litigation under state statutes in local courts, or under federal law heard in federal courts.”