Trade Secret Legal Protection 2026 - Agenda

Regulatory and government disclosure obligations increasingly require companies to submit highly sensitive technical and commercial information that would otherwise qualify as trade secrets. Join this session to find out how in-house teams manage regulatory compliance without undermining future trade secret protection or litigation position.

• Understand where US regulatory disclosures most commonly weaken trade secret claims, including FDA filings, cybersecurity reporting, and other mandatory submissions.
• Learn how FOIA and government access risks are assessed in practice, and what courts look for when companies argue information remained confidential after disclosure.
• Identify procurement and government contracting disclosures that can compromise trade secret protection, and how to mitigate those risks upfront.
• Take away practical strategies for structuring regulatory submissions to preserve trade secret status and support reasonable-measures arguments in future disputes.

Trade secrets now sit far beyond R&D and the legal team. They run through data systems, manufacturing processes, vendor relationships, AI tools, and everyday employee workflows. As a result, effective trade secret protection increasingly depends on coordination between legal, HR, IT, security, engineering, and operations. This session focuses on how companies are adapting their internal structures to protect trade secrets as they spread across the organisation.

• Why trade secrets are no longer confined to technical teams or formal IP portfolios.
• How data systems, collaboration tools, and AI are expanding where trade secrets live.
• The role of HR, IT, security, and operations in supporting trade secret protection.
• Practical examples of cross-functional models that improve protection without slowing the business.

Beyond legal risk, trade secret disputes can result in catastrophic knock-on effects throughout a business: they can disrupt operations, drain technical teams, and affect investor confidence for years. This fireside chat looks at how in-house teams manage trade secret litigation when the stakes extend far beyond the courtroom.

• How litigation strategy changes when trade secret disputes become ‘bet-the-business’ matters.
• Managing discovery scope, technical witness fatigue, and internal disruption over multi-year disputes.
• Navigating investor relations, disclosure obligations, and activist pressure during ongoing litigation.
• Decision-making around settlement, arbitration, or escalation when business survival is at stake.

Mergers and acquisition bring about profound risk for the loss or theft of proprietary information, with he added complications of uncatalogued trade secrets and departing employees with deep process knowledge only increasing these risks. This session will discuss practical strategies that in-house teams are implementing to mitigate these risks and allow for smooth M&A proceedings.

• Integration of M&A systems to prevent risk during acquisition, and balance restrictive covenants.
• How to mitigate the risk posed by departing employees with deep process knowledge.
• Balancing enforcement with workforce mobility and ensuring that morale and professionality is maintained.
• Strategies for joint development M&A.

Trade secret cases are often won or lost on contemporaneous evidence. This roundtable focuses on how companies build defensible records before any misappropriation is suspected.

Employee movement is the most common trigger for trade secret disputes. This roundtable explores how companies balance protection, culture, and retention in high-mobility environments.

India plays a growing role in global R&D, manufacturing, and data processing, yet trade secret protection remains largely contract based. This roundtable provides a practical, enforcement-focused update for multinational legal teams.