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Privacy & Security Notice Theft of Trade Secrets
The ever-increasing influence of technology in everyday life has made the "trade secrets" behind the new technologies highly valuable in today's global marketplace. A trade secret is information that has independent economic value which its owner has taken reasonable steps to keep secret. Stealing trade secrets encompasses anything from theft of a product blueprint to "reverse engineering" an item in order to discover its design secrets.
Trade secrets must be protected, particularly from criminal conspirators and foreign governments, to preserve the healthy competitiveness of business and industry and promote free enterprise in the marketplace. To help ensure such protection, Congress passed the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, making the theft of trade secrets a federal offense.
The Act specifically makes it against the law for foreign governments or their spies to obtain trade secrets. Under this law, it is now a federal crime to steal or deliver trade secrets knowing that such conduct would benefit a foreign government.
In addition, the Act also makes trade secrets theft a federal crime for the devious individual or company who is not acting on behalf of some foreign government, but is simply trying to get an edge on a competitor by engaging in what is commonly referred to as "Industrial Espionage."
If you have information concerning a possible violation of this law, click here to easily contact us by e-mail.
