December 2017 Bar Bulletin
By Eric A. Lindberg
Traditionally, trade secret litigation has been based on state common law and the various state versions of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA). In fact, 48 out of 50 states have passed some version of the UTSA (New York and Massachusetts are the outliers), although each version may have minor definitional differences or state-specific provisions.
But the passage of the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA)1 marks a major shift in trade secret litigation. While the DTSA does not replace state trade secret law claims, there are important distinctions and differences between the...