The Goldilocks Problem: Trade Secret Protection for AI
By David Baake
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to revolutionize the economy, courts are increasingly being asked to determine whether AI models and algorithms can be protected as trade secrets. Yet case law reveals that plaintiffs often struggle to obtain trade secret protection for their models, even for programs that contain elements that are both valuable and secret, because the plaintiff has not identified the program at the right level of particularity. The difficulty lies in describing the technology in a way that is general enough to be “understood by a lay person,”
but detailed enough to separate it from “special knowledge of those persons skilled in the trade.” See Neural Magic v. Meta Platforms, 659 F. Supp. 3d 138, 166 (D. Mass. 2023).
Full article below:
By David Baake
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to revolutionize the economy, courts are increasingly being asked to determine whether AI models and algorithms can be protected as trade secrets. Yet case law reveals that plaintiffs often struggle to obtain trade secret protection for their models, even for programs that contain elements that are both valuable and secret, because the plaintiff has not identified the program at the right level of particularity. The difficulty lies in describing the technology in a way that is general enough to be “understood by a lay person,”
but detailed enough to separate it from “special knowledge of those persons skilled in the trade.” See Neural Magic v. Meta Platforms, 659 F. Supp. 3d 138, 166 (D. Mass. 2023).
Full article below:
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