The legislation that would allow greater protection for companies with trade secrets have been approved by the Senate. Companies will now have the option to go directly in federal court to fight trade-secret theft.
The Defend Trade Secrets Act gained an overwhelming support from the Senate. According to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the passage of the bill would definitely protect the companies from thieves that steal the creativity of others. He added that this will help protect the American innovation as per Reuters.
According to the US News, the approved bill will encourage businesses to confidently develop new products and services in the future. The stealing of intellectual property which includes trade secrets costs US businesses more than $300 billion per year according to the report of the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property.
The Wall Street Journal notes that the stealing of commercial trade secrets was not considered a crime until the year 1996 despite the growing focus on the value of intellectual property. The Espionage Act of 1996 never gave these companies the civil federal remedies.
Trade secrets are considered confidential information that definitely give a certain company the edge among others. The variation of these trade secrets varies from which the company is focusing its products on. Companies have always been wary about threats of hacking and cases of rogue employees. The bill will enable them to take the case in court and also recover the damages that were incurred by these theives.
For this very reason, the bill gained an enormous support from a number of companies like Boeing, Johnson & Johnson and trade groups such as the U.S Chamber of Commerce, Biotechnology Industry Organization and also from computer and software companies like Apple and Microsoft. The version of the bill from Congress has over 120 sponsors but the Judiciary Committee has not shown its approval yet. Its actions will still be determined on the months to come.
