The Trade Secret Governance Model While most organizations are diligent in carefully registering, cataloging and monitoring their tangible intellectual property of patent, trademarks and copyrights, the most valuable asset of them all often remains elusive: Trade Secrets. A study by Forrester Consulting found that fully two-thirds of an organization’s information portfolio can be attributed to trade secrets and in knowledge-intensive fields, this number rises to 70 and even 80%.
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For years, we have been hearing about the impact that Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology could have on the legal profession. The hype around how AI will “change the world” includes everything from promises of an AI-fueled utopia to the impending Skynet apocalypse. To say that expectations about AI are high would be an understatement and while much of the talk is around the possibilities, the reality is much less dramatic, is not always that useful or amazing, and can be extremely frustrating.
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Legal operations excellence is about finding that right balance between supporting the day-to-day challenges of the practice of law and finding ways to harness the tools and experience of that practice to innovate for more effective legal and business outcomes. But that’s easier said than done!
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Electronic commerce has exploded over the past decade, bringing with it a host of new laws related to business transactions using modern technology and communication. Of note are those related to the use of electronic signatures. E-Signature policies are increasingly being adopted by businesses to save significant time and money by eliminating the manual back-and-forth of routing paper documents and reducing the time needed for signature and approvals.
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The imminent enforcement date of the GDPR has the technical world scrambling for compliance across all aspects of every enterprise. While many have begun to incorporate the guiding principles of "Controller" and "Processor" into their operational practices, some Controllers may not yet have considered how their Processor's Processors handle relevant data.
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With the May 25th compliance deadline for the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rapidly approaching, GDPR compliance and enforcement issues are top of mind for the Legal community. The adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets a high bar in the protection of personal data. The Regulation was designed to give citizens control of their personal data and address the disruption to data privacy fashioned by the rapid evolution of information technology over the past 20 years. The publication of the official text in 2016 provided organizations located in, and those doing business in the EU, time to review and prepare for the upcoming compliance deadline of May 25, 2018.
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Important New Guidelines for Employees and Employers Some time has now passed since the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) was signed into law in May 2016. The DTSA ushered in a broad set of new protections for corporate trade secret misappropriation and – notably – new enforcement mechanisms. Though the DTSA addressed a number of important gaps in law and jurisprudence, it also introduced a number of little known and understood requirements that impose important challenges and obligations on innovation-based businesses.
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Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), operative May 25, 2018, governs not just how your company protects the personally identifying information (PII) of EU citizens and residents, but also from whom. The rule clarifies that mandatory PII protections extend beyond local data storage and usage to also include data transfer across borders to third parties and beyond. Your obligation to keep your EU data safe now requires you to also ensure that it will remain safe wherever and with whomever it ultimately ends up.
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If your U.S.-based company receives data (is a "data collector") from European Union (EU) citizens or residents, it must comply with the incoming GDPR - the EU's General Data Protection Regulation. That regulation divides "data collectors" into one of two categories: "Controllers" or "Processors." Determining which role best defines your corporate data-collection activities will also guide the development of your GDPR-compliant PII management systems.
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Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) establishes a fundamental right to privacy in all of the "data subjects" that are within its jurisdiction. The rule becomes enforceable on May 25, 2018, and companies that have EU "data subject" information currently in their databanks must demonstrate by that date that they are managing that data per GDPR standards. If your enterprise works in the EU or with EU citizens, you need to be prepared to demonstrate GDPR compliance on or before its enforcement date.
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