The report comes at a time when increased focus and collaborative public and private sector approaches are needed to help address the challenges of safeguarding intellectual property rights and preventing unfair and anti-competitive trade practices.
Entitled Trade Secret Theft: Managing the Growing Threat in Supply Chains, the paper underscores that trade secret theft not only costs industry billions of dollars annually - it is also a critical impediment to innovation, job creation and sustainable economic growth.
"Failure to address the challenge of trade secret theft costs industry billions of dollars each year and can have devastating reputational, financial, and legal impacts for individual companies and the global economy as a whole," said Pamela Passman, president and chief executive officer of CREATe.org.
In addition to providing a unique view into a broad range of global trade secrets cases, the report provides MNCs with practical guidance and proactive measures for securing their supply chains and mitigating the risk and cost associated with trade secret misappropriation.
"Over the past several months, we have engaged with representatives from more than a hundred multinational corporations and have been struck by the deep and pervasive concern over trade secret theft. We heard universal agreement about the need for broader awareness of the challenge and better practices and systems to help address the issue internally and externally with suppliers and business partners," Passman added.
Among the paper's key guidance for MNCs is that proactive measures must be implemented across organizations to prevent rampant trade secret theft. These measures include:
(1) Conducting a strategic assessment of trade secrets;
(2) Undertaking appropriate pre-contractual due diligence;
(3) Employing strong contractual protections, backed by enforceable audit rights and penalties;
(4) Utilizing appropriate operational and security measures; and
(5) Ensuring appropriate action after a business relationship has ended.
