7375. Trade Secrets and Innovation

This course examines broadly the law of confidential information. It explores the ways that businesses deploy trade secret law to protect product information such as chemical formulae, business strategies, technological inventions prior to patents--or as an alternative to the patenting process, and compilations of information such as databases. Taking a comparative approach, the course will address this area of intellectual property law in the European Union, the United States, Canada and Australia, and the United Kingdom. Trade secret law will be understood broadly as information governance. The subject intersects with employment law, privacy, data regulation, commercial morality, duties of confidentiality and non-competes, and other areas of intellectual property law.