Trade Secrets and Innovation: Evidence from the ‘Inevitable Disclosure’ Doctrine

[Paper by Andrea Contigiani, Iwan Barankay and David H. Hsu] Abstract: Does heightened employer-friendly trade secrecy protection help or hinder innovation? By examining U.S. state-level legal adoption of a doctrine allowing employers to curtail inventor mobility if the employee would “inevitably disclose” trade secrets, we investigate the impact of a shifting trade secrecy regime on individual-level patenting outcomes...