This entry in the online Global Dictionary of Competition Law defines the term trade secret: information that has commercial value to an organization due to its secrecy, is not known outside of the organization, and the continuing secrecy of which the organization has taken reasonable measures...

Like other forms of intellectual property (IP), trade secret value may arise from two primary sources. The first is proprietary competitive advantage gained through use of the IP coupled with the right to exclude others from such use. The second is by monetizing IP directly through licensing to...

Almost every business owns proprietary information that adds value and provides a competitive advantage because the information is not known to the business's competitors. Trade secret law protects such information from theft or unauthorized disclosure. Because one of the principal policies...

As the knowledge economy expanded and concerns about trade secret misappropriation mounted in the digital age, federal policymakers undertook efforts to reinforce trade secret protection a decade ago. These efforts came to fruition with passage of the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA)....

We study whether firms value court enforceability of their workers’ noncompete agreements (NCAs), leveraging a 2020 Washington law that made NCAs unenforceable for workers earning less than a threshold of $100k per year (indexed to inflation), covering approximately 79% of Washing-ton workers....

In examining the staggered recognition of the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine (IDD) as an exogenous shock to trade secret protection, we demonstrate that firms display lower stock returns following the recognition in a difference-in-differences (DID) design. Cross-sectional regression results...