New! H2O now has access to new and up-to-date cases via CourtListener and the Caselaw Access Project. Click here for more info.

Main Content

Casebook Read Credits
Start-Up Companies and Venture Capital
Resource 1 . 2
3 minutes

Trade Secrets

Brian JM Quinn

Employees who leave an employer to start their own venture may risk inadvertantly taking "trade secrets" that are the property of their previous employer with them. To the extent former employees rely on these trade secrets to create a new business opportunity, former employees raise a risk of violating legal obligations to their former employers. Below you'll find two different causes of action related to theft of trade secrets. The first is a common law private right of action. The second is a federal criminal offense.

This book, and all H2O books, are Creative Commons licensed for sharing and re-use with the exception of certain excerpts. Any excerpts from the Restatements of the Law, Principles of the Law, and the Model Penal Code are copyright by The American Law Institute. Excerpts are reproduced with permission, not as part of a Creative Commons license.