The Defend Trade Secrets Act becomes law

On May 11, 2016, the Defend Trade Secrets Act was signed into law, creating a federal civil claim for trade secret misappropriation. Unlike copyright, which requires a human author, and patent law, which requires a natural person as inventor, the DTSA has no authorship or inventorship requirement. Protection turns on secrecy, reasonable measures to keep it, and economic value from not being generally known, not on who or what created the information. That makes trade secret law one of the few tools that can still protect purely AI-generated code, with the caveats and the open standing question covered in Trade Secrets Don’t Require an Author on the Resources page.

This page reflects current U.S. copyright law and general international principles. It is provided for educational purposes and does not constitute legal advice.