Now that President Obama has signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) into law, in-house attorneys and outside counsel are pondering its implications for employment contracts, non-disclosure agreements with business partners and litigation paths for protecting critical company trade secrets. The DTSA affords clarity and consistency to the lone area of intellectual property law that until now has been governed primarily by a patchwork of states’ laws. The DTSA grants federal question jurisdiction for trade secrets cases, provides uniform definitions of a “trade secret” and “misappropriation” and sets out clear and meaningful remedies, including expedited injunctive relief and seizure. The DTSA undoubtedly provides trade secret owners with a new layer of protections in a world where trade secrets have become a company’s lifeblood, and yet hacking and corporate espionage have become commonplace.

Protecting a company’s interests always starts with controlling the circumstances under which trade secrets are shared, and managing the company’s relationships with its employees as well as with vendors, suppliers and customers. In light of the DTSA, legal and human resources departments will have to revisit the contracts between the company and its employees. For example, the DTSA has a section providing immunity from claims of trade secret misappropriation to whistleblower employees who disclose their employer’s trade secrets or confidential information to state or federal agencies for the purpose of reporting or investigating a suspected violation of law.

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