Misappropriation of Trade Secrets in E-commerce Businesses
“Whatever you have established in all these years has been stolen!”
As world business evolves on the internet, the protection of an entity’s trade secrets could be described as an “enormous challenge” in the digital era. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization trade secrets are defined “as information that needs to be commercially valuable, and only accessible or known to a limited group of people.” Another important step is to indicate such information as trade secrets, business owners or the rightful owners must take reasonable steps to keep it a secret, including the use of confidentiality agreements for employees and business partners. However, among the four types of intellectual property (patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets), patents and trade secrets protect information. But, unlike others during the ongoing period of global pandemic, digitization has taken over the world. Almost 2.14billion or more have purchased goods from online platforms.
The E-commerce platforms are evolving, and the majority of large scale retail e-commerce companies like Amazon, Microsoft. Tesla, etc. are racing to adopt Machine learning and artificial intelligence for understanding customer’s satisfaction, and prioritizing customer’s needs. However, advanced technologies are supposed to reduce human errors, but cyber crimes are increasing. There are e-commerce platforms, who have lost millions due to misappropriation of trade secrets, or have failed to protect that information, and have lost their brand’s goodwill. Trade secrets include confidential business information, which provides a company a competitive edge, and most importantly unknown to others.
According to legal scholars, trade secrets are the most essential information for any commercial business, and e-commerce platforms. There are multiple types of trade secrets in the e-commerce business like, business practices, supplier lists, techniques, marketing strategy, stakeholder’s information and unique software process. These information are unique, and have commercial value, disclosing of those information may develop legal challenges. On a positive note, the US has the most advanced legal system for the protection of trade secrets, and companies may claim for monetary damages, injunctions, TRO, and declaratory damages. Under the “Uniform Trade secret Act, 1985, “Defend Trade Secrets act”, 2016, and other state laws such as “Illinois trade secret Act” focuses particularly on “trade secrets'', and each act has defined and segregated information accordingly. Often people get confused with trade secrets and confidential information. However, there is a saying that, “all trade secrets are confidential information, but all confidential information are not trade secrets.”
How should you, as a business owner, protect your trade secrets?
There is a necessity to identify information which could be constituted as trade secrets, and employers must take steps to keep those secrets confidential. In the E-commerce industry, most information must be kept confidential, as that is the highly valuable information. But, protection of this information is often neglected by the employers. The fact is when you think Business, think of technology, cyber crimes and misappropriation. There are two significant areas, which needs to be concerned are as follows;
Violation of other’s intellectual property
Safeguarding own intellectual property
However, as an employer, it is necessary to take steps to ensure that employees do not disclose trade secrets. It is necessary that, as an employer you must conduct an appropriate training program. It is necessary to make employees aware of trade secrets confidentiality. Here, non-disclosure agreements are highly recommended for employees who have access to such trade secrets.
Nonetheless, the situation becomes more critical when a former employee shares your trade secrets or uses those information in a different organisation. Therefore, the contract between an employer and employee needs to include such phases, so that, when he becomes a former-employee, he does not disclose your company’s trade secrets, and if they do, they might undergo serious legal actions. Employees must not download company information into their own devices, or should not use any such information without any reasonable purposes. However, things might become critical in the near future, and companies must take legal advantages.
In the US, there are strict legal rules that would prohibit misappropriation of trade secrets, and provide significant protection to proprietary information. In comparison with other nation-states, the US has prioritized the protection of trade secrets more than other intellectual property. The fact is, companies are prioritizing customer’s satisfaction, and competitors are not leaving any space for your win.
Disclosure of trade secrets, and other relevant information of your company, would be beneficial for your competitors, and your company might lose goodwill. Cyber crimes are increasing, and criminals are finding new technologies or malicious applications to take away your data. If your company is facing such problems, TEIL will help you to move forward with using the “Civil court system”, to stop the misuse of your secrets, and further misappropriation of trade secrets. Attorneys will be helping you to understand different steps and we would also provide other legal tools for maximizing your trade secrets and business information.
How The Evans International law firm helps
TEIL attorneys provide invaluable advice to companies and individual businesses owners who are concerned about the protection of their valuable proprietary information. We understand procedural steps and formalities which are mainly required for keeping your trade secrets confidential so the public and competitors do not get access to that private information which develops a competitive edge for your business success. Businesses are tricky, especially while the world has adopted advanced technology and digitalization for business expansion. However, it is tricky to protect your trade secrets either in the traditional form of digital platforms.
Nonetheless, TEIL firms will be assisting you to determine what information needs to be considered as trade secrets and how the company needs to follow to make certain that those trade secrets are being protected under the law. TEIL law firm also helps clients whose trade secrets have been accessed without consent or have been misappropriated or breach of contractual obligations (employer and employee relationships.
TEIL also assists start-up, small-medium as well as large companies in drafting non-disclosure agreements, and also provides effective guidance to use legal tools to keep your business secrets safe and sound. Whenever a problem arises and disclosure is threatened or there is any kind of misappropriation, TEIL’s legal team has always assisted with effective legal action. We help companies, or business owners to pursue remedies in civil court, including ETRO, PI to constrain the disclosure of trade secrets and claim for damages to obtain compensation, due to misappropriation of such secrets. Trade secrets need to be prioritized, so it’s protection in the digital age.
Getting help from The Evans International Law Firm Attorneys
If you have questions about any of the above you should contact us for a free consultation.If you have an international agreement then it goes without saying that you MUST understand the laws governing. Our team will be advising your business from different legal steps that are required to be taken for maintaining confidentiality of trade secrets. Call TEIL 708/531-1740 OR Contact us online to get personalized advice on how our legal team could assist you about protection of business secrets.