Recent California Supreme Court Decision Stokes Debate Over Scope of Trade Secret Preemption

Cases defining the scope of the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act’s (“CUTSA”) preemptive effect have grown in recent years.  Preemption (or “supersession” as the California Supreme Court prefers), increasingly is used by litigants to seek dismissal of non-trade secret causes of action pleaded alongside trade secret claims and which allegedly fall within the scope of CUTSA.  This has been particularly so since the decision in Silvaco Data Systems v. Intel Corporation, 184 Cal. App. 4th 210 (2010), which interpreted broadly—albeit at times in dicta— the CUTSA’s supersessive scope, finding among other things that “CUTSA bars [Bus. & Prof. § 17200] claims sounding in misappropriation of trade secrets.”

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