Proposed legislation would create a federal civil cause of action for trade secrets misappropriation

A pair of amendments to the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act of 2011were proposed early this month by Senators Chris Coons (D-NJ) and Herb Kohl (D-WI). The bill would allow US businesses allegedly wronged by trade-secret theft to sue in federal court by streamlining existing state laws into a uniform national statute and would elevate trade-secret IP to the same level as copyright, trademark and patent violations.

David Almeling, commenting in PatentlyO, doesn’t think the legislation goes far enough because it limits the types of misappropriation covered and explicitly leaves the current state law system in place.