“As tech firms compete to attract and retain tech talent while adjusting their workforces for future business growth, employee movement has increased, making the protection of trade secrets from competitors more crucial than ever. Baker McKenzie’s international depth in handling these complex competitor trade secret disputes around the globe allow us to better advise our clients and allow them to leverage our worldwide industry experience in this field.
Continue Reading Top Strategies to Safeguard Tech Trade Secrets
Bradford Newman, Chair of North America Trade Secrets Practice, Palo AltoTrade secrets give tech companies a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving landscape, where success depends on the ability to innovate. The unauthorized acquisition, use, or disclosure of trade secrets can result in significant loss and disruption, making it essential for organizations to have robust safeguards in place to protect their trade secrets. Here, we explore clear steps organizations can take to manage and mitigate risks with a focus on trade secret identification and the role of employees in trade secret protection.
Mission Critical: Protecting Tech Trade Secrets
Fast-paced developments
The technology sector continues to experience huge transformation with emerging technologies and advancements in AI. Companies are investing heavily in developing capabilities, and new services and products. Rapid innovation and desire to be first to market, has caused trade secrets to become an increasingly preferred method of protection over other types of intellectual property regimes, such as applying for a patent, which can be costly and raise complex timing considerations. Trade secrets can protect algorithms, processes, datasets, customer lists, and more. The trade secrets of companies at the forefront of AI and other tech innovation are highly valuable.
Expanding threat landscape
Threat actors are leveraging tech advancements to steal vast amounts of company information through more sophisticated and efficient attacks. Heightened internet usage increases hacking risks from competitors, foreign governments and hacktivist groups.
AI developments currently require high computational power, concentrating progress in large tech companies. However, the competitor landscape is changing, with many start-ups and established companies building applications within the AI technology stack, alongside new players entering the AI frontier race. The demand for tech talent with the skills to drive innovation is at all-time high, making trade secret protection critical.
In the past few years, tech companies have also been especially susceptible to the public disclosure of confidential internal documents by employee activists motivated by non-monetary factors.
Legal remedies
Legal frameworks for protecting trade secrets have become more robust and varied across jurisdictions. Injunctive relief (to prevent use of trade secrets and reclaim them) is an essential tool in trade secret breach cases. Victims may also pursue financial remedies, such as damages.
Organizations should lay the groundwork to maximize their options in the event of breach. Penalties for trade secret theft include fines and imprisonment for criminal offences, and even economic sanctions. These penalties broaden the options available to victims, provide an avenue that avoids some of the practicalities of enforcement from a business point of view, and serve as a powerful deterrent.
“One factor making effective action against employee trade secret theft more difficult is that employees increasingly use personal devices or personal messaging apps to capture or transmit work-related information; companies’ ability to access employees’ personal devices and communications through personal messaging apps is limited.
Jonathan Isaacs, Head of China Employment Practice, Hong Kong“As tech firms compete to attract and retain tech talent while adjusting their workforces for future business growth, employee movement has increased, making the protection of trade secrets from competitors more crucial than ever. Baker McKenzie’s international depth in handling these complex competitor trade secret disputes around the globe allow us to better advise our clients and allow them to leverage our worldwide industry experience in this field.
Continue Reading Top Strategies to Safeguard Tech Trade Secrets
Bradford Newman, Chair of North America Trade Secrets Practice, Palo Alto
Complying with the AI Act: Navigating HR Challenges in the EU (Webinar)
On 2 February 2025 the first deadlines under the EU AI Act took effect. This included the AI literacy provisions, responsibility for which will likely be with HR teams and the ban on prohibited AI systems. What do these and other upcoming changes under the Act mean for in-scope employers?
In this webinar, our multijurisdictional
Passage of Reintroduced California AI Bill Would Result In Onerous New Compliance Obligations For Covered Employers
Shortly after taking office, President Trump rescinded Biden’s Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence. Biden’s Executive Order sought to regulate the development, deployment, and governance of artificial intelligence within the US, identifying security, privacy and discrimination as particular areas of concern. Trump signed his own executive order titled “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” directing his advisers to coordinate with the heads of federal agencies and departments, among others, to develop an “action plan” to “sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance” within 180 days.
While we wait to see if and how the federal government intends to combat potential algorithmic discrimination and bias in artificial intelligence platforms and systems, a patchwork of state and local laws is emerging. Colorado’s AI Act will soon require developers and deployers of high-risk AI systems to protect against algorithmic discrimination. Similarly, New York City’s Local Law 144 imposes strict requirements on employers that use automated employment decision tools, and Illinois’ H.B. 3773 prohibits employers from using AI to engage in unlawful discrimination in recruitment and other employment decisions and requires employers to notify applicants and employees of the use of AI in employment decisions. While well-intentioned, these regulations come with substantial new, and sometimes vague, obligations for covered employers.
California is likely to add to the patchwork of AI regulation in 2025 in two significant ways. First, California Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, Chair of the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee, plans to reintroduce a bill to protect against algorithmic discrimination by imposing extensive risk mitigation measures on covered entities. Second, the California Privacy Protection Agency’s ongoing rulemaking under the California Consumer Privacy Act will likely result in regulations restricting the use of automated decision-making technology by imposing requirements to mitigate algorithmic discrimination.Continue Reading Passage of Reintroduced California AI Bill Would Result In Onerous New Compliance Obligations For Covered Employers
Now available – Baker’s 2025 Global Data & Cyber Handbook
- Key laws and regulations, including recent changes and expected developments over the next year
- Foundational data privacy obligations including information and notification requirements, data subject rights, accountability and governance measures, and responsibilities of data controllers and
AI Tug-of-War: Trump Pulls Back Biden’s AI Plans
On January 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, President Trump revoked Executive Order 14110 on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence (the “Biden Order”), signed by President Biden in October 2023. In doing so, President Trump fulfilled a campaign pledge to roll back the Biden Order, which the 2024 Republican platform described as a “dangerous” measure. Then on January 23, 2025, President Trump issued his own Executive Order on AI, entitled Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence (the “Trump Order”). Here, we examine some of the practical implications of the repeal and replacement of executive orders by Trump and what it means for businesses.
Overview of the Executive Orders
Building on the White House’s 2022 Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, the Biden Order outlined a sweeping vision for the future of AI within the federal government, including seven high-level objectives: (1) Ensuring the Safety and Security of AI Technology; (2) Promoting Innovation and Competition; (3) Supporting Workers; (4) Advancing Equity and Civil Rights.; (4) Protecting Consumers, Patients, Passengers, and Students; (5) Protecting Privacy; (6) Advancing Federal Government Use of AI; and (7) Strengthening American Leadership Abroad.
The Biden Order directed various measures across the federal apparatus –imposing 150 distinct requirements on more than 50 federal agencies and other government entities, representing a genuinely whole-of-government response.
Although the bulk of the Biden Order is addressed to federal agencies, some of its provisions had potentially significant impacts on private sector entities. For example, the Biden Order directed the Commerce Department to require developers to report on the development of higher risk AI systems. Similarly, the Biden order directed the Commerce Department to establish requirements for domestic Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers to report to the government whenever they contract with foreign parties for the training of large AI models. The Biden Order also open-endedly instructed federal agencies to use existing consumer protection laws to enforce against fraud, unintended bias, discrimination, infringements on privacy, and other harms from AI—a directive various federal regulators actioned under the Biden administration.
Other than the definition of AI, the Trump Order and Biden Order share no similarities (both Orders point to the AI definition from 15 U.S.C. 9401(3), namely: “a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations or decisions influencing real or virtual environments”). The Trump Order does not contain specific directives (such as those in the Biden Order), but instead articulates the national AI policy to “sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.” The Trump Order directs a few specific roles within the administration to develop an Artificial Intelligence Action Plan within 180 days (i.e., by July 22, 2025) to achieve the policy objective articulated in the Trump Order. The Trump Order directs these same roles within the administration to review the policies, directives, regulations, orders, and other actions taken pursuant to the Biden Order and to suspend, revise, or rescind any such actions that are inconsistent with the Trump Order’s stated policy. In cases where suspension, revision, or rescission of the prior action cannot be finalized immediately, the heads of agencies are instructed to “to provide all available exemptions” in the interim.
Practical Impacts
The practical effect of the revocation of the Biden Order—and the options available under the Trump Order—will vary depending on the measure. Although there are widespread impacts from the revocation of the Biden Order’s mandates across multiple initiatives and institutions, below are those that are expected to have a significant impact on private sector entities engaged in the development or use or AI.
Reporting requirement for powerful AI models: As noted, the Biden Order directed the Department of Commerce to establish a requirement for developers to provide reports on “dual-use foundation models” (broadly, models that exhibit high levels performance at tasks that pose a serious risk to security, national economic security, national public health or safety). Pursuant to the Biden Order, the Bureau of Industry and Security’s (BIS), a Commerce Department agency, published a proposed rule to establish reporting requirements on the development of advanced AI models and computing clusters under its Defense Production Act authority, but had not issued a final rule prior to the revocation of the Biden Order. It is likely that the new administration will closely scrutinize this reporting requirement and may take action to block the adoption of the final rule if it is found to be inconsistent with the policy statement in the Trump order.Continue Reading AI Tug-of-War: Trump Pulls Back Biden’s AI Plans
California’s CLE Compliance Deadline Is Approaching – We can help!
Join our AI and Cyber CLE Series
If your last name starts with A-G, you are probably well aware that your (recently extended) MCLE compliance deadline is on March 30, 2025. In addition to the general credit requirement, the state of California requires all attorneys to complete:
- At least four hours of legal ethics
- At least two hours on competence issues
- At least two hours on the elimination of bias in the legal profession and society. Of the two hours, at least one hour must focus on implicit bias and the promotion of bias‑reducing strategies.
- At least one hour on technology
- At least one hour on civility
Continue Reading California’s CLE Compliance Deadline Is Approaching – We can help!
California AI CLE Series
Special thanks to co-presenters Teresa Michaud and Bradford Newman.
California’s CLE Compliance Deadline Is Approaching…
We can help!
If your last name starts with H-M, you are probably well aware that your CLE compliance deadline is right around the corner – February 1, 2024. In addition to the general credit requirement, the state of California requires all attorneys to complete:
- At least four hours of legal ethics
- At least one hour on competence issues
- At least two hours on the elimination of bias in the legal profession and society. Of the two hours, at least one hour must focus on implicit bias and the promotion of bias-reducing strategies.
Our lawyers will offer three virtual sessions, focused on key considerations for AI development and utilization, to help you meet your CLE requirements. These sessions will also offer CLE credit in the states of Illinois, Texas, and New York. Participants requesting CLE for other states will receive uniform CLE certificates.
Please register and let us know which individual session(s) you plan to attend. We look forward to your participation!
Promoting Unity: Overcoming the Risks of Bias and Prejudice in the Workplace
Tuesday, January 16, 2024 | 1:00 – 2:00 pm Pacific
1 hour Elimination of Bias credit (pending approval)Continue Reading California AI CLE Series
Join Us in New York! Generative AI: Harnessing the Power & Mitigating the Risk
Special thanks to our Baker McKenzie speakers Pamela Church, Teisha Johnson, Cyrus Vance, Elizabeth Roper, Laura Estrada Vasquez, Joshua Wolkoff and Industry Experts, Alexandra Lopez, Privacy Counsel, Calix, Una Kang, VP and Associate General Counsel, Wolters Kluwer, and Pamela Weinstock, Managing Counsel, Intellectual Property, Tiffany & Co.
Biden’s Wide-Ranging Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence Sets Stage For Regulation, Investment, Oversight and Accountability
On October 30, 2023, President Biden issued a 63-page Executive Order to define the trajectory of artificial intelligence adoption, governance and usage within the United States government. The Executive Order outlines eight guiding principles and priorities for US federal agencies to adhere to as they adopt, govern and use AI. While safety and security are predictably high on the list, so too is a desire to make America a leader in the AI industry including AI development by the federal government. While executive orders are not a statute or regulation and do not require confirmation by Congress, they are binding and can have the force of law, usually based on existing statutory powers.
Instruction to Federal Agencies and Impact on Non-Governmental Entities
The Order directs a majority of federal agencies to address AI’s specific implications for their sectors, setting varied timelines ranging from 30 to 365 days for each applicable agency to implement specific requirements set forth in the Order.
The actions required of the federal agencies will impact non-government entities in a number of ways, because agencies will seek to impose contractual obligations to implement provisions of the Order or invoke statutory powers under the Defense Production Act for the national defense and the protection of critical infrastructure, including: (i) introducing reporting and other obligations for technology providers (both foundational model providers and IaaS providers); (ii) adding requirements for entities that work with the federal government in a contracting capacity; and (iii) influencing overall AI policy development.Continue Reading Biden’s Wide-Ranging Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence Sets Stage For Regulation, Investment, Oversight and Accountability
Responsible AI and the War for Talent
Recent and rapid artificial intelligence developments have captured public attention and much has been discussed around how organizations will need to prepare.
From an employment standpoint, the increasingly sophisticated potential for AI applications spans the entire employee lifecycle, from recruitment to onboarding, training and more.
In the second report in our Workforce Redesign: Outlooks