Search results

3 results

May 1, 2019Zach Wolfe, Paul T. Freeman

Trade Secrets 101: What Texas Businesses and Their Lawyers Need to Know

First, if a business wants to preserve the ability to sue for misappropriation of tradesecrets, it needs to take “reasonable measures” to maintain the confidentiality of the informationthat constitutes the alleged trade secrets. This is only what businesses need to do from a legal perspective. There are many otherpractical things businesses can do, but that’s more a topic for security experts than legal experts

The Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act

In this past legislative session, the Texas Legislature enacted the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act (“TUTSA”). On September 1, 2013, Texas will join 46 other states that are currently governed by some form of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. Before enactment of TUTSA, Texas had no central law governing trade secrets. Instead,Texas law on trade secrets was cobbled together from Texas common law, the Restatement of Torts, the Restatement (Third) of Unfair Competition, and the Texas Theft Liability Act. Much of this law was outdated (the Restatement of Torts was drafted in 1939) and was simply not designed for the technological developments of the modern era. As a result, Texas businesses and those businesses looking to expand to Texas were left to guess as to what proprietary information Texas law would and would not protect. TUTSA codifies and modernizes Texas law on misappropriation of trade secrets by providing a simple legislative framework for litigating trade secret cases. Among other things, TUTSA provides an unambiguous and updated definition of trade secrets, a simplified means for obtaining injunctive relief and sealing court records, and an attorneys’ fees provision for recovering fees from those parties who engage in willful and malicious activity.What follows is a section by section analysis of TUTSA. Section 134A.002 of TUTSA contains a list of six new definitions, including definitions for “trade secret,”“misappropriation,” “improper means,” “proper means,” and “reverse engineering.”

A Practitioner’s Guide to the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act

Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act (TUTSA) was signed into law in 2013. Prior to this enactment, Texas did not codify a central law governing trade secrets. TUTSA applies to the misappropriation of a trade secret made on or after the effective date (September 1, 2013) of this Act. Since 2013, further amendments have been made to expand and clarify TULSA’s definitions as well as rules, in an effort to provide greater protection against misappropriation claims. This article provides a detailed examination of TUTSA, by discussing trade secret definitions; eligibility requirements for trade secret information; elements of a trade-secret misappropriation claim; remedies under TUTSA and statute of limitation for TUTSA claims.