In Seyfarth’s third installment in its 2018 Trade Secrets Webinar Series, Seyfarth attorneys Kate Perrelli, Dawn Mertineit, Justin Beyer, and Andrew Stark focused on trade secret audits, with an emphasis on the importance of a proactive, systematic approach to assessing and protecting trade secret portfolios.

As a conclusion to this well-received webinar, we compiled a summary of takeaways:

• Recent government and news media attention on trade secret theft serves as a firm reminder of the risk of trade secrets being stolen and the importance of protecting them. Trade secret theft costs American companies hundreds of billions of dollars per year, and even the largest and most sophisticated companies are victims.
• It is critically important to identify and understand your company’s trade secrets to ensure that you have adequate protections from theft in place.
• Have a well-communicated plan for the audit to ensure buy-in from appropriate stakeholders and set expectations.
• An equally important, but sometimes overlooked, component of the trade secret audit is reviewing and analyzing a company’s internal technology. Any plan to prevent misappropriation should include analyzing company technology, upgrading it when feasible, or customizing it to prevent someone from stealing information.