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, and 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 creating authoritative, trustworthy, & distinctive content, which looks to educate and deliver in a manner that only Miletti Law® can. 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 the ball in your court, yours is 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 benefit from the knowledge bombs we drop here!

As the authoritative force in Employment Law, we are committed to providing you with authoritative, up-to-date, and trustworthy content through which you can draw enlightening information to stay ahead of the game in your business. In this regard, this blog is Part VII of our multipart series on the “Enforcement of the Protection of Employers’ Confidential Information & Trade Secrets.“ In Part VI of this series, we moved the discussion forward with an overview of “Provisions for Notice & Whistleblowing under the DTSA.” To keep the discussion alive, we have provided you with key information concerning “The Economic Espionage Act & the Application of the DTSA Overseas” in this blog, which is Part VII of the series.

The Economic Espionage Act & the Application of the DTSA Overseas

Sometimes, the misappropriation of trade secrets may occur outside of the United States (U.S.). This raises an important question – What should employers do if their trade secrets have been misappropriated outside of the U.S., where the DTSA (Defend Trade Secret Act) is not applicable? In such a case, employers are permitted to utilize the DTSA when addressing such misappropriation or theft under the terms of the Economic Espionage Act (EEA), which were modified by the DTSA. Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1837, one of the EEA’s provisions indicates that the law applies to conduct taking place outside the borders of the U.S. if:

  • An act in the offense’s furtherance was committed within the territory of the U.S.-
  • The offender is a permanent resident or citizen of the U.S.-and/or-
  • The offender is a corporation of the U.S.

The continued proliferation of overseas trade secret theft underscores the substantial significance of employers having the option of addressing conduct that takes place outside of the U.S. through the DTSA. Ideally, the lack of strong IP rights protection in many foreign countries is attributable to the growing threat of trade secret theft outside the territory of the U.S.

For example, China is well known to be a central hub of corporate and/or economic espionage. In fact, the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, Foreign Spies Stealing US Economic Secrets in Cyberspace, Oct. 2011 has branded Chinese actors as the most persistent and active economic espionage perpetrators globally. Employers would find the provisions of the EEA & the application of the DTSA extremely useful when addressing such conduct originating from China. Including a lack of judicial independence, unavailability and inaccessibility of local protectionism, insufficiency of resources for enforcement, and a lack of coordination among government agencies, the effective IPR (intellectual property rights) enforcement in China is being undermined by the significant institutional and structural impediments, which continuously compounds this threat to the U.S.

In a nutshell, it is crucial to understand that whether the theft/misappropriation takes place in China or another territory without reliable and robust IP (intellectual property) protections, the DTSA provides employers, particularly those within the U.S., valuable option when addressing the theft or misappropriation of trade secret taking place overseas.

In Part VII of this series, we will move the discussion forward by providing you with an overview of “The International Trade Commission (ITC), Section 337, & the DTSA.”

As usual, while you should strive to be #UnusuallyMotivated, stay tuned for more education, training, and legal guidance. In the interim, reach out to us with questions and/or comments on our website at the Contact Us page!

Always rising above the bar,

Isaac T.,

Legal Writer & Author.