Here at the Law Office of Vincent Miletti, Esq. and the home of the #UnusuallyMotivated movement, we take pride as a resilient and dependable legal services firm, providing such services in both a traditional and online, web-based environment. With mastered specialization in areas such as Employment and Labor Law, Intellectual Property (IP) (trademark, copyright, patent), Entertainment Law, and e-Commerce (Supply Chain, Distribution, Fulfillment, Standard Legal & Regulatory), we provide a range of legal services including, but not limited to traditional legal representation (litigation, mediation, arbitration, opinion letters, and advisory), non-litigated business legal representation and legal counsel, and unique, online legal services such as smart forms, mobile training, legal marketing, and development.

Still, here at Miletti Law®, we feel obligated to enlighten, educate, and create awareness about how these issues and many others affect our unusually motivated® readers and/or their businesses. Accordingly, to achieve this goal, we have committed ourselves to create authoritative, trustworthy, & distinctive content. Usually, this content is featured as videos posted on our YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtvUryqkkMAJLwrLu2BBt6w and blogs that are published on our website WWW.MILETTILAW.COM. With that, the ball is in your court and you have an effortless obligation to subscribe to the channel and sign up for the Newsletter on the website, which encompasses the best way to ensure that you stay in the loop and feel the positive impact of the knowledge bombs that we drop here!

As the authoritative force in Employment Law, it only seemed right to introduce one of the many upcoming series where we remain persistent in introducing a variety of topics, which will look to not only educate but also deliver in a sense that only Miletti Law® can. In this regard, this blog is Part XI of our series on “Cybersecurity Measures to Protect Employers.” In Part X, we provided you with an overview of “Using Unique & Individualized Log-in Credentials & Passwords,” the last but not least cybersecurity initiative that an employer may take as part of taking reasonable measures to protect confidential information and trade secrets. Having exhausted the list of those cybersecurity initiatives, we now switch gears and focus on another critical issue in this blog and Part XI of the series. As an important question for all employers and as it concerns the protection of their trade secrets, who should employers involve with and engage in the oversight of a business or company’s trade secrets?

Assigning Responsibility for Trade Secret Oversight in a Business

It is critical for employers to identify, assess, and evaluate how activities and undertakings such as the acquisition of new information containing a trade secret, the implementation of expansion plans, or the creation of new product lines influence and implicate their cybersecurity needs. An employer may appoint and select an individual or group of people to make such assessments, which, by acting as pillars of implementing reasonable efforts for maintaining trade secrets, empowers the employer to keep the details of their trade secret(s) confidential and secret.

However, employers should take caution when selecting and deciding the individual(s) who would be entrusted with oversight of their trade secrets. Irrespective of their relationship with the employer, some of the employees who may be the most qualified to make the assessment and evaluations related to what needs protection and how it should best be protected include, but are not limited to those with technical, legal, and business experience, those with access and visibility across the company or business, and those in senior positions. While an employer may need to create such a position(s) to serve this purpose, a chief legal officer, chief information security officer, chief information officer, a person in a similar position, or a task force comprising of such individuals might be the most appropriate for the job.

Depending on the size, nature, and type of a company or business and if applicable, the employer should seek updates and follow up with the information technology department regularly to streamline communication between the department and facilitate effective operations across those who are tasked with managing the business or company’s intranet and software. Finally, while it still varies with the nature of the company or business, it would also be crucial to involve the employer’s executive committee and/or board with matters involving information security and any cybersecurity measures the employer has put in place and/or implemented.

In Part XII, we shall move the discussion forward by hammering on the “Trade Secret Loss/Theft Response Plan: Best Employer Practices.”

Stay tuned for more legal guidance, training, and education. In the interim, if there are any questions or comments, please let us know at the Contact Us page!

Always rising above the bar,

Isaac T.,

Legal Writer & Author.