Join Me for the American Intellectual Property Law Association's Trade Secret Summit on October 23, 2012 in Washington D.C.

As many of you may know, I have been very active in the American Intellectual Property Law Association's (AIPLA) Trade Secret Law Committee over the past few years, serving as its Litigation Subcommittee Chair and soon to be assuming the role of Vice-Chairman of the Committee. I want to take this opportunity to encourage you to give serious thought to attending the Trade Secret Summit on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington D.C. 

Dan Westman, the outgoing Chair of the Committee, has done a tremendous job of putting the Summit together and he has assembled an impressive panel of speakers who will cover a full range of important and emerging topics, including:

• The interplay of trade secrets and patents as a result of the America Invents Act, including "prior user" rights;
• Key developments in trade secret law, including the DuPont v. Kolon case, TianRui Group v. ITC decision and important federal legislation;
• Special issues presented by spoliation of evidence and electronic discovery; and
• Corporate counsel perspectives, including measures to protect secrets, trade secret audits and other important tools.

It has been a remarkable year in trade secret law -- DuPont v. Kolon, the expansion of the Economic Espionage Act, important federal and state trade secret bills, the emerging split in circuits over the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act -- the list continues to grow. The Summit will be a wonderful opportunity to learn more about these and other developments.

Speakers will include what amounts to, in my humble view, a "Who's Who" of many important figures in the trade secret community, including Victoria Cundiff of Paul Hastings LLP, Mark Halligan of Nixon Peabody LLP, Griffith Price of Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner, LLP, Peter Toren of Weisbrod Matteis & Copley PLLC, Russell Beck of Beck Reed Riden LLP, Mark Klapow of Crowell & Moring, LLP, Michael Songer of Crowell & Moring, LLP and Eva Almirantearena of Intel Corporation.

For more about the program or to register for the Summit, go to this link. For those attending AIPLA's Annual Meeting, I would urge you to also plan on attending the Summit which gets under way on the Tuesday of the week of the Annual Meeting. I hope to see you there!