Prof. Cotter’s Article Cited in Trade Secret Damages Case

In a dissenting opinion filed in the May 3 decision of the New York Court of Appeals in E.J.Brooks Co. v. Cambridge Security Seals, 2018 WL 2048724, Judge Rowan Wilson cited an article co-authored by Professor Thomas Cotter. Discussing a disputed legal question concerning the appropriate measure of damages for trade secret misappropriation, Judge Wilson stated “the appropriate calculus for thefts of private goods should not constrain the calculus for thefts of public goods (see e.g., Roger Blair & Thomas Cotter, 39 Wm & Mary L Rev 1585, 1590 [1998] [“the optimal set of damages rules should preserve both the incentive structure of intellectual property law and the property-like character of intellectual property rights ... in the absence of enforcement, information, and other transaction costs, these goals require at a minimum an award that renders the infringer no better off as a result of the infringement”]).