Proving Misappropriation of Trade Secrets

If your business has trade secrets, it’s your obligation to protect them and keep them safe. But it often happens that despite our best efforts, your hard earned and developed trade secrets end up in the wrong hands or in the public eye. How did this happen? It’s called misappropriation of your trade secrets.

What is a Trade Secret?

The first step to making a claim for misappropriation of trade secrets is actually showing that what was taken and misappropriated is in fact a trade secret in the first place.

Trade secrets are information that has value or economic worth, because it is not known to the general public, which was developed as a result of time, money, or resources, and that you (the trade secret owner) have taken steps to ensure the trade secret’s privacy—that is, you have treated the information a private or confidential.

A trade secret does not have to be new, or anything that is or which could be copyrighted or patented.

How Trade Secrets Get Misappropriated

But often, others must see, access or utilize your trade secrets in order for them to have value. A business is often more than one person, and if your trade secret yields money for you, it takes contractors or employees or others to put those trade secrets into action to monetize them.

For example, an employee may have to know how to create your product, or how you get clients or customers, or what formula you use to create your pricing model.

The more people that access or use your trade secrets, even with your permission, the more likely it is that those trade secrets will end up in the wrong hands.

Was it Stolen?

To win your case, you must show that either the Defendant stole the trade secret—that is, he or she never had permission to access, use or see the trade secret—or that the Defendant did, at some point, legally have access to it but then used or disseminated or sold it or gave it to others—that is that the Defendant went beyond whatever permission he or she originally had to use or access the trade secret.

A common defense to trade secret misappropriation is that the Defendant came upon the protected, private information, independently—that is, that the Defendant already knew of the trade secreted information, in a way other than getting it from your business. That would mean that he or she didn’t steal anything.

For example, if you have a customer list developed through your trade secreted way of finding clients, the Defendant may say that he or she just went online and found those same clients—that he or she independently came upon your trade secreted information in a way other than utilizing your trade secrets.

Federal Preemption

Preemption is often a difficult legal issue, because misappropriation claims often sound much like intellectual property infringement cases. Someone who misappropriates your patented information, is actually committing patent infringement.

That doesn’t mean you can’t sue, and win–it just means that your case is one for infringement, not misappropriation of trade secrets.

Let the West Palm Beach business litigation attorneys at Pike & Lustig help you protect your business’ trade secrets and confidential information.

Source:

leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0600-0699/0688/0688ContentsIndex.html