Insight from Dawn David Included in MLex Article About Significance of Federal Trade Secrets Law on Its 10th Anniversary
Dawn David, a Milwaukee-based partner in the Quarles & Brady Intellectual Property Practice Group, was quoted in an MLex article about the impact of the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) in the 10 years since it was passed by Congress.
DTSA was designed to provide federal protection for trade secrets where none had previously existed. The article noted that the federal law has provided important consistency to an important area of U.S. intellectual property (IP) law. It has significantly impacted how companies protect their IP assets and will continue to play a critical role “in an economy increasingly defined by data, software and proprietary knowledge.”
David said the law’s impact has been overwhelmingly positive. An excerpt:
Before the DTSA, companies seeking to protect trade secrets relied on state laws, which varied widely in definitions, remedies and procedures. That hodgepodge created uncertainty, especially for businesses operating across multiple jurisdictions.
“In 10 years [DTSA] has become the cornerstone of trade secret enforcement in the United States,” said Dawn David, a partner at Quarles. “By any measure, that is a resounding success.”
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A decade on, the DTSA has established itself as a key pillar of US intellectual property law, and practitioners agree that it has filled an important gap in an era in which intangible assets are central to business success.
“The digital world makes trade secrets easier to steal and detect, and attorneys get to enjoy the DTSA’s procedural edge and jury-friendly narratives,” said David. “Layer on escalating concerns about economic espionage and cross-border IP theft, plus nine-figure verdicts, and you have a perfect storm for more DTSA filings.”