10-2 BACKGROUND

• Jurisdiction: United States

10-2 Background

The DTSA is an amendment to the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (EEA), which criminalized any trade secret misappropriation connected to interstate or foreign commerce, but which also permitted only the U.S. Attorney General to enforce its provisions.¹ Congress passed the DTSA in April 2016, and President Obama signed it into law on May 11, 2016. Reports from both the Senate and the House highlighted the growing impact that losses arising from trade secret misappropriation have had in recent years on the American economy. For instance, one report estimated losses of $300 billion per year, while another estimated as much as $480 billion in annual costs of trade secret theft.² Accordingly, the amendment to the EEA provided a new civil remedy in federal court, with a stated purpose of furthering trade secret protection to, in turn, "incentivize future innovation while protecting and encouraging the creation of American jobs."³

Prior to the DTSA's enactment, 48 states and the District of Columbia had adopted the Uniform Trade Secrets Act in one form or another. But differences among states adopting the UTSA had led to considerable, case-dispositive differences in how trade secret claims were decided across the nation.⁴ Congress, therefore, enacted the DTSA with the goal of providing uniformity and a more efficient remedy for trade secret owners, without preempting any state trade secret laws.⁵ Moreover, this new federal private right of action brought the rights of trade secret plaintiffs "into alignment with those long enjoyed by owners of other forms of intellectual property," such as patents, trademarks, and copyrights.⁶ With this background in mind, we now consider the differences between the federal DTSA and the Texas version of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act.

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Notes:

^[1] See 18 U.S.C. § 1831 et seq.

^[2] S. Rep. No. 114-220, at 2 (2016); H.R. Rep. No. 114-529, at 3 (2016).

^[3] S. Rep. No. 114-220, at 3 (2016).

^[4] S. Rep. No. 114-220, at 2-3...