On January 9, 2012, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed into law the New Jersey Trade Secrets Act, which establishes principles governing protection of trade secrets and remedies for their misappropriation. In doing so, New Jersey has joined the mainstream in the trade secrets arena: New York, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Texas are the only remaining states without a statute modeled on the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. While the New Jersey Trade Secrets Act introduces a statutory framework governing trade secret protection, in many respects it does no more than codify existing case law. The Act became effective on January 9, 2012.

In effect, the statutory definition of a “trade secret” is not particularly different from how New Jersey courts have defined the term. As before, a trade secret fundamentally is information, in any of a number of possible formats, with respect to which efforts are undertaken to maintain its secrecy and that derives current or potential economic value from not being known generally. It is worth noting that New Jersey already had a definition of “trade secret” under its criminal statutes. While the text of the criminal statute’s definition reads differently, its meaning and interpretation are consistent with the newly-enacted civil statute’s definition.