The Law Governing Trade Secrets

•  Trademarks, copyrights, and patents are all subject to extensive federal statutory schemes for their protection, there is no federal law relating to trade secrets, and no registration is required to obtain trade secret protection.
• Most trade secret law arises from common law principles, namely, judge-made case law.  The first reported trade secret case in the United States was decided in 1837 and involved manufacturing methods for making chocolate.
• In 1939, the Restatement of Torts (a wrongful act or an infringement of a right) adopted a definition of a trade secret, and many states relied on that in developing their body of case law, leading to greater consistency in the development of trade secrets law. 
•  Additionally 1979, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State laws drafted the uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) to promote uniformity among the states with regard to trade secrets law.
• The UTSA was amended in 1985. The following definition of trade secret has been adopted by the UTSA:
• Trade secret means information, including a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique or process that: 
• Derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable by proper means by, other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use, and
• is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstance to maintain its secrecy.