In the digital age, trade secrets have only grown in importance. Most trade secrets—from business plans, customer lists, and formulas, to manufacturing processes, computer code, and new product designs—can easily be copied or electronically transferred and shared with almost anyone, anywhere. These confidential trade secrets may exit your company on an external drive in the pocket of a disgruntled former employee or, just as effortlessly, show up unannounced in the hands of a new hire.

Hunton’s trade secrets team helps clients reduce risk by strategically identifying, protecting, and enforcing trade secrets. Our IP lawyers work across disciplines with other practice groups in the firm, including corporate, M&A, labor and employment, privacy and cybersecurity, and white collar, regulatory defense and investigations. Relying on this depth of knowledge of the law and technologies spanning multiple industries has enabled our clients to secure sensitive information and minimize trade secret disclosure, as well as avoid or defend against allegations of misappropriation.

Counseling

Trade secret cases involve complex technical disputes between employers and former employees, contractors, vendors, and business partners. Absent robust protection measures—and counseling in advance—secrets can be lost forever. 

We have experience crafting trade secret protection programs and counsel clients on the importance of recognizing potential trade secrets early, before they are inadvertently lost or compromised. Our team helps clients develop systems to identify trade secrets, determine technologies to maintain as secret and others to publicly disclose by seeking patent protection, and draft confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements with strong provisions and penalties to discourage breach and misappropriation.

Litigation and Enforcement

Once discovered, unauthorized disclosure or distribution requires prompt and effective enforcement action to preserve a trade secret. Injunctive relief is a critical remedy. On the other side, not all alleged confidential information is a trade secret, and companies and individuals accused of misappropriation can challenge both the protectability of information and the elements of misappropriation.

We have secured injunctive relief under the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) and many state Uniform Trade Secret statutes. We have venue experience across the US and in the US International Trade Commission (if, for example, misappropriation occurs abroad and is exploited in imported goods). We have defended frivolous trade secret claims, proving there was no misappropriation—or no trade secret at all. And we have technical experience under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), as well as state statutory equivalents.