This seminar has two fundamental objectives.

The first is to lead students to acquire an in-depth and transnational understanding of trade secret law. As such, the course will not focus on a single domestic jurisdiction, but will instead provide an overview of the protection of trade secrets on a global basis, with particular emphasis on a comparison between the EU Trade Secrets Directive and the US Defend Trade Secrets Act and Uniform Trade Secrets Act.

Secondly, considering the nature of the LL.M. programme in which it is taught, the
seminar will explore the specific intersection between trade secrets and emerging digital technologies. On the one hand, it will illustrate the rising importance of trade secrets in protecting such technologies through the analysis of selected case studies and, on the other, it will discuss how startups and entrepreneurs can use trade secret law to their advantage and how they can avoid common pitfalls in using trade secrecy to protect their information assets.