Uniform Trade Secrets Act

The Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA), published by the Uniform Law Commission (ULC) in 1979 and amended in 1985, was a uniform act of the United States promulgated in an effort to provide legal framework to better protect trade secrets for U.S. companies operating in multiple states. The UTSA aimed to codify and harmonize standards and remedies regarding misappropriation of trade secrets that had emerged in common law on a state-to-state basis.

As of May 2013^[update], the UTSA has been enacted by 47 states, and by the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

A prefatory note to the UTSA states some original motivations for the act:

A valid patent provides a legal monopoly for seventeen years in exchange for public disclosure of an invention. If, however, the courts ultimately decide that the Patent Office improperly issued a patent, an invention has been disclosed to competitors with no corresponding benefit. In view of the substantial number of patents that the courts invalidate, many businesses now elect to protect commercially valuable information by relying on the state trade secret protection law.

The UTSA made note of the commercial value and competitive advantages inherent in trade secrets. Unlike patent protection, which was addressed at the federal level, trade secret misappropriation was addressed at the state level.

In the United States there existed a prevalence of interstate commercial transactions that extended beyond the jurisdiction of individual state legislation. For example, goods may have been manufactured in State A, warehoused in State B, sold from State C, and delivered in State D.

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