Family firms are known for their reluctance to invest in research and development. We show that strengthened trade secret protection is associated with higher R&D investment by family firms. More specifically, we show that the association between the strength of trade secret protection through...

This paper studies firms’ information withholding in a mandatory environmental disclosure regime where regulators only allow firms to withhold information regarded as a trade secret. I find evidence of withholding information for reasons other than proprietary-cost concerns, which is...

This article examines whether and to what extent the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) affects technology spillovers between focal firms (i.e., receivers of spillovers) and peers (i.e., senders of spillovers). I find that technology spillovers from peers located in states adopting the UTSA are...

This article examines whether and to what extent the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) affects technology spillovers between focal firms (i.e., receivers of spillovers) and peers (i.e., senders of spillovers). I find that technology spillovers from peers located in states adopting the UTSA are...

This Article examines public expectations of privacy in trade secret and the Fourth Amendment. Using an original, nationally representative survey of over a thousand respondents, we identify two privacy hierarchies. The first hierarchy is between domains: the public believes that surveillance...

Nowadays, Artificial Intelligence technology is attracting increasing attention at the global level. From the legal point of view, legislators and researchers' most prominent concern revolves around how to provide adequate protection for the components of Artificial Intelligence to stimulate...

The Food and Drug Administration is one of the most stringent regulatory bodies in the world. As American consumers continue to ingest more pharmaceuticals yearly, the ingredients within these products are increasingly outsourced. Due to the strict oversight of the FDA, American pharmaceutical...

Trade Secrets are a flexible innovation tool that are used across sectors and types of firms. This report summarises and critiques the publicly available academic and grey economic literature on trade secrets and highlights key innovation aspects. Developed for the UK Intellectual Property...

Innovative activity depends on the incentives to create new ideas as well as the visibility of and access to existing ones. We show that a relative strengthening of trade secrets protection has a disproportionately negative effect on patenting of processes -- inventions that are not otherwise...

On June 24, 2020, the LESI Chemicals Engineering Environment Materials Committee (CEEM) held a webinar on the important topic of trade secret management and more broadly, IP management. The webinar drew together expert panelists from a wide range of industries and regions within the CEEM sector....

Trade secrets have been increasingly used by Artificial Intelligence (AI) industry to protect commercial interests underlying AI modules. This has a potential to interfere with the AI explainability principle. This article explores in which situations a conflict between trade secret protection...

This paper analyzes the optimal protection strategy for an innovator of a complex innovation who faces the risk of imitation by a competitor. We suppose that the innovation can be continuously fragmented into sub-innovations. We characterize the optimal mix of patent and trade secrets when the...

This paper considers how vaccine technology to meet the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic can be made available to increase the production of vaccines. Its primary focus is on trade secrets, which are one of the main intellectual property rights protecting the complex manufacturing processes...

Switzerland is a Member State of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which specifically protects undisclosed information (Article 39(2)). Confidential/undisclosed information is protected by a variety of provisions across the Swiss legal...

A trade secret is protectable when it (1) relates to and is capable of application in trade or industry; (2) has the necessary quality of secrecy or confidence, is not in the public domain and is known only to a restricted number of persons; and (3) has economic value to the proprietor (e.g.,...

The law of confidence is capable of encompassing all information that any party has an interest in keeping confidential. While confidential information generally comprises information of a commercial nature (e.g., a company’s internal guidelines and policies), it also includes information of a...

As such, the relations with regard to information are governed by the Federal law of 27.07.2006 “On information, information technologies and information protection” (“the Information Law”).Section 7, Article 2 of the Information Law provides for a “confidentiality of information”...

Trade Secret law in Mexico has undergone the most significant change of the last 25 years as of November 5, 2020, when the new Law for the Protection of Industrial Property (FLPIP) was enacted to replace the former Industrial Property Law (1994) in the context of the entry into force of the also...

In Japan, confidential information is protectable irrespective of whether the information is technical or commercial, subject to certain conditions. Specifically, the Unfair Competition Prevention Act (UCPA) protects “trade secrets,” which are defined as technical or business information...

Indian courts by means of various case laws have allowed the protection of trade secrets/confidential information through the provision of appropriate remedies. To seek such remedies, one has to generally prove:That the information itself has the necessary quality of confidence about it; That...

This report summarizes China’s legal regime for enforcing trade secret rights and the remedies provided for trade secret right holders to combat misappropriation through, e.g., judicial civil action, administrative action, and criminal prosecution respectively before a people’s court, an...

Trade secret protection applies to confidential information that is generally technical in nature and which has a valuable commercial or industrial application.1 There are six non-exhaustive factors commonly analyzed by Canadian courts to determine if information is protectable as a trade...

A business secret is confidential knowledge or information that is capable of giving its holders a competitive advantage in the market.Protection of trade secrets in Brazil has historically not been associated with the notion of property since, technically speaking, unpatented information and...

Confidential information is protectable in Australia. There are different forms of confidential information recognized and different bases for protection. Providing the information has the necessary quality of confidentiality, it will be protectable irrespective of whether it is technical or...

El presente documento realiza un estudio preliminar del capítulo XX relativo a propiedad intelectual del Acuerdo MERCOSUR – UE de libre comercio, MERCOSUR logró en este capítulo que la UE hiciera tabla rasa respecto de los anteriores acuerdos de libre comercio. Se arribó a un resultado...

We find that an increase in a firm's incentives to use trade secrets to protect its intellectual property results in a more actively managed capital structure. Exploiting U.S. states' adoption of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act as a positive “shock” in the protection afforded to trade secrets,...

We exploit the staggered recognition of the Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine (IDD) by US state courts to examine the effect of trade-secret protection on the amount of firm-specific information incorporated in stock prices, as reflected in stock price synchronicity. We find that after certain...

This paper examines whether and to what extent the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) affects technology spillovers between focal firms (i.e., receivers of spillovers) and peers (i.e., senders of spillovers). I find that technology spillovers from peers located in states adopting the UTSA are 27%...

The standardisation of trade secret protection was one of the goals of the TRIPs Agreement of 1998. Nevertheless, substantial differences in this protection remain across jurisdictions. When defining the optimal scope of trade secrets law, lawmakers should be aware that strong trade secret...

The first target of today's global commercial and military espionage, trade secrets, are the only form of intellectual property protection to be based on the necessity of nondisclosure and secrecy rather than on the paradigm of publicity and exploitability, with the obvious consequence that...

The standardisation of trade secret protection was one of the goals of the TRIPs Agreement of 1998. Nevertheless, substantial differences in this protection remain across jurisdictions. When defining the optimal scope of trade secrets law, lawmakers should be aware that strong trade secret...

We examine how labor mobility restrictions in the form of non-compete clauses in employment contracts affect employee behavior. Using the mutual fund industry as testing laboratory, we show that fund managers respond to higher job termination costs due to increased enforceability of non-compete...

This chapter examines the costs incurred in the creation of technological intellectual properties can often be currently deducted although certain costs are required to be capitalized (some of which may be recovered over time and others of which can only be recovered upon sale or disposition of...

We use exogenous variation in the strength of trade secrets protection to show that a relative weakening of patents (compared to trade secrets) has a disproportionately negative effect on the disclosure of processes - inventions that are not otherwise visible to society. We develop a structural...

To date, more and more decisions are supported or even directly assumed by algorithms. As a result, we need to understand how to prevent and govern those algorithmic choices that may prove to be wrong, unfair, or discriminatory. Algorithmic transparency, that is, the possibility to investigate...

As we enter the second year post enactment of the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act, this Paper presents a snapshot of developments to assess whether there appear to be any significant doctrinal changes afoot in trade secret litigation, both civil and criminal, during the past year. I take a...

When we think of trade secrets, we often think of famous examples such as the Coca-Cola formula, Google's algorithm, or McDonald's special sauce used on the Big Mac. However, companies have increasingly made the novel argument that diversity data and strategies are protected trade secrets. This...

Recently, a cacophony of concerns have been raised about the propriety of noncompetition agreements (NCAs) entered into between employers and employees, fueled by media reports of agreements which attempt to restrain low-wage and low-skilled workers, such as sandwich makers and dog walkers. In...

Confidential information and trade secrets remains key and significant to Intellectual Property. Intellectual property constitutes the intangible rights that protect the human intellect. This paper is on the protection of confidential information and trade secrets in Nigeria. This paper work...

On 30 July 2018, the Belgian legislature transposed the EU Directive 2016/943 on trade secrets (hereafter, “Directive”) by adopting the law on the protection of trade secrets (hereafter, “Trade Secrets Law”), which entered into force on 24 August 2018.Considering that some provisions on...

We use exogenous variation in the strength of trade secrets protection to show that a relative weakening of patents (compared to trade secrets) has a disproportionately negative effect on the disclosure of processes - inventions that are not otherwise visible to society. We develop a structural...