An injunction in a trade secret case should generally end when the trade secret does. But new empirical research by Professor Lynda Oswald sheds new light on the actual lifetime of these injunctions. The results are surprising. Oswald finds that in the vast majority (~80%) of cases in her dataset, courts simply grant an open-ended injunction without a fixed term. While defendants could in theory move to dissolve the injunction when the trade secret ceased to exist, Oswald found no evidence this happened. In effect, the injunctions appear to have remained in effect indefinitely.
Lynda Oswald is the Louis and Myrtle Moskowitz Research Professor of Business and Law at University of Michigan's School of Business. Professor Oswald's article, An Empirical Analysis of Permanent Injunction Life in Trade Secret Misappropriation Cases, has now been published in the Iowa Law Review.
