Pfizer Vaccine Lawsuit Spotlights Trade Secret Protection Tactics

Pfizer’s lawsuit alleging an employee stole trade secrets about its Covid-19 vaccine highlights the critical nature of trade secrets as pharmaceutical companies try to protect them, and the importance of the controls companies use.

Pfizer said in its complaint that it put in place technology for monitoring employee uploads to cloud-based platforms in October, the same month it flagged activity by defendant Chun Xiao (Sherry) Li.

Failing to protect trade secrets can erase competitive advantages that took investments of billions of dollars over many years to develop, intellectual property policy analyst Jaci McDole of the Information Technology & Innovation Fund ...