Trade Secret Law and Information Systems: Can Your Students Keep a Secret?

1. INTRODUCTION In 2010, the IS community released a major update to its undergraduate curriculum guidelines that encompasses not only technical knowledge and skills but also managerial knowledge and skills (Topi et al, 2010). The 2010 guidelines identified seven key capabilities that high-performing IS graduates should demonstrate upon completion of their IS degree: "improving organizational processes; exploiting opportunities created by technology innovations; understanding and addressing information requirements; designing and managing enterprise architecture; identifying and evaluating solution and sourcing alternatives; securing data and infrastructure; and understanding, managing and controlling [information technology] IT risks" (Topi, et al., 2010, pp.362). These capabilities reflect "the change in the nature of the jobs IS graduates are likely to have by focusing on business analysis, organizational processes, enterprise architecture, sourcing options, and security/risk management" (Topi, et al., 2010, pp. 375). In addition to these capabilities, the guidelines expect that IS professionals will "exhibit strong ethical principles and have good interpersonal communication and team skills" (Topi, et al., 2010, pp. 370). To this end, the guidelines encourage educational experiences that require students to identify and evaluate ethical issues in the IS field, work with others in the IS field and outside of the field, and demonstrate effective communication (Topi, et al., 2010). The guidelines recognize the need for IS students to be familiar with the legal environment in which they will work and identify several courses that would be appropriate delivery points for this information and experience. For example, in IS project management courses, students need to "understand the mechanisms for dealing with legal issues" (Topi et al, 2010, pp. 398), while in IS Systems Analysis and Design, students need to "analyze and articulate ethical, cultural, and legal issues and their feasibilities among alternative solutions" (Topi et al, 2010, pp. 400). In IT Security and Risk Management courses, students need to learn to secure information assets and mitigate effects of legal prosecution. Further, the guidelines suggest that specific knowledge areas of IS include professional IS issues such as ethical and legal issues, intellectual property, and privacy (Topi et al., 2010). This paper focuses on aspects of intellectual property, specifically trade secrets, and data security that need to be addressed in the IS curriculum. 2. WHY IP LAW IS IMPORTANT TO IS STUDENTS AND PROFESSIONALS Creativity has long been considered a foundation of the American economy and has been protected by law since this country's inception through the grant of constitutional protection (U.S. Constitution, art. I, [section] 8). Accordingly, under United States IP laws, the purpose of IP protection is twofold: to provide a financial boon to the inventor or creator of the work and to promote creativity, which drives economic growth by keeping information in the public domain (Lao, 1998). The two IP forms that most IP professionals and students are familiar with are copyright and patent. Generally speaking, copyright law grants certain exclusive rights to those who produce original creative works while patent law grants certain exclusive rights to those who produce new inventions or processes. Copyrights and patents are often used to protect business process and software development and as such, IS professionals encounter those forms of IP and the legal protections they are afforded (Ford, et al., 2010). However, another important form of IP is trade secrets, which are generally defined in the U.S. as proprietary information that generates an economic advantage for a particular business (UTSA 1985, section 14). When it enacted the Economic Espionage Act, Congress recognized "the great importance of trade secrets to the national economy, going so far as to equate threats to trade secrets with threats to the country's national security" (Brenton, 2009, pp. …