§1832 — Title 18 Crimes and Criminal Procedure | U.S. Code

Summary

It is a crime to take or use a trade secret tied to a product or service used in interstate or foreign commerce for someone else’s financial gain when you know it will hurt the owner. The law bans stealing or hiding secrets, copying or sending them without permission, getting or keeping secrets you know were stolen, trying to do these things, or planning them with others. A company that breaks this can be fined the larger of $5,000,000 or three times the value of the stolen secret to the company, including research and design costs and any savings from not having to recreate the secret.

Title 18, §1832

Crimes and Criminal Procedure — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)Whoever, with intent to convert a trade secret, that is related to a product or service used in or intended for use in interstate or foreign commerce, to the economic benefit of anyone other than the owner thereof, and intending or knowing that the offense will, injure any owner of that trade secret, knowingly—

(1)steals, or without authorization appropriates, takes, carries away, or conceals, or by fraud, artifice, or deception obtains such information;

(2)without authorization copies, duplicates, sketches, draws, photographs, downloads, uploads, alters, destroys, photocopies, replicates, transmits, delivers, sends, mails, communicates, or conveys such information;

(3)receives, buys, or possesses such information, knowing the same to have been stolen or appropriated, obtained, or converted without authorization;

(4)attempts to commit any offense described in paragraphs (1) through (3); or

(5)conspires with one or more other persons to commit any offense described in paragraphs (1) through (3), and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy,

(b)Any organization that commits any offense described in subsection (a) shall be fined not more than the greater of $5,000,000 or 3 times the value of the stolen trade secret to the organization, including expenses for research and design and other costs of reproducing the trade secret that the organization has thereby avoided.

Notes & Related Subsidiaries

Editorial Notes

Amendments

2016—Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 114–153 substituted “the greater of $5,000,000 or 3 times the value of the stolen trade secret to the organization, including expenses for research and design and other costs of reproducing the trade secret that the organization has thereby avoided” for “$5,000,000”. 2012—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 112–236 substituted “a product or service used in or intended for use in” for “or included in a product that is produced for or placed in” in introductory provisions.

Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries

Report on Theft of Trade Secrets Occurring Abroad Pub. L. 114–153, § 4, May 11, 2016, 130 Stat. 382, which requires biannual reports on the theft of trade secrets of United States companies occurring outside of the United States, was editorially reclassified as section 41310 of Title 34, Crime Control and Law

§1832 Theft of trade secrets