Snapshot of Trade Secret Developments

As we enter the second year of the DTSA, this Article presents a snapshot of developments to assess whether there appears to be any significant doctrinal changes afoot in trade secret litigation— including civil and/or criminal—during the past year. Professors David Levine and Christopher Seaman provided some empirical data and quantitative analysis of the case filings during the first year of litigation under the DTSA (from May 2016 to May 2017). This Article complements their excellent work by taking a qualitative look at some of the substantive rulings from the following year. My assessment based on this limited sampling is that there does not appear to be any dramatic changes to the doctrinal development of the law to date. Rather, courts continue to search for fairness as they struggle with problems common to trade secret litigation regarding, for instance, trade secret identification, misappropriation, and damages.