preprint · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics
What's it worth to keep a secret? IP protection under the Economic Espionage Act
Gavin C Reid, Nicola C Searle
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Abstract
Protecting intellectual property by trade secrecy has become an increasingly attractive alternative to more conventional modes of IP protection, like patenting and copyright. This paper provides a statistical, econometric and case study analysis of the protection and valuation of trade secrets under the US Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (which criminalised trade secret theft). A new data set is created using EEA prosecutions from 1996 to 2008. By statistical and econometric analysis, it is shown: (a) that both high and low valuations of trade secrets follow a log-normal distribution, supporting Gibrat’s Law; and (b) that, while there is no significant difference in estimates of magnitudes of theft using diverse economic valuation methods (e.g. unjust enrichment, reasonable royalty etc), there is a significant difference between both high and low estimates, and the cross reference value which is often used in sentencing. This suggests, first, that the typical (say, modal) trade secret has quite low value (e.g. $5m.), but some (few) values can be very much larger (e.g. $250m.); and second, that determining sentence values involves other elements than pure economic calculation, like culpability of offenders and proportionality.
Cite this paper
Reid, G. C., & Searle, N. C. (n.d.). What's it worth to keep a secret? IP protection under the Economic Espionage Act. RePEc: Research Papers in Economics.
Reid, Gavin C, and Nicola C Searle. “What's it worth to keep a secret? IP protection under the Economic Espionage Act.” RePEc: Research Papers in Economics.
Reid, Gavin C, and Nicola C Searle. n.d.. “What's it worth to keep a secret? IP protection under the Economic Espionage Act.” RePEc: Research Papers in Economics.
Reid, G.C. and Searle, N.C. (n.d.) ‘What's it worth to keep a secret? IP protection under the Economic Espionage Act’, RePEc: Research Papers in Economics.
@misc{reidwhat,
title = {{What's it worth to keep a secret? IP protection under the Economic Espionage Act}},
author = {Reid, Gavin C and Searle, Nicola C},
journal = {RePEc: Research Papers in Economics}
}Made from the index record. Check names, capitalisation and page numbers against the paper. Need another style? AI for Research has over 10,000.