The foundational federal law protecting original works of authorship. Copyright attaches automatically upon fixation; registration is not required for protection but is required before suing for infringement and to recover statutory damages.
Created a federal civil cause of action for trade secret misappropriation. Lets companies sue in federal court and seek injunctions, damages, and — in egregious cases — seizure of misappropriated materials.
Establishes safe harbors for online service providers against liability for user-uploaded infringing content, provided they implement notice-and-takedown procedures. Critical for any platform hosting user-generated content.
Not a single law but a critical compliance area. Open source licenses create legally binding obligations when you use, modify, or distribute open source software. Key license families: Permissive (MIT, Apache 2.0, BSD — few obligations, allow proprietary use); Weak Copyleft (LGPL, MPL — share-alike requirements apply only to the licensed component); Strong Copyleft (GPL, AGPL — require distributing source code of the entire combined work). AGPL is particularly significant for SaaS companies — network use may trigger copyleft obligations even without distributing software. Every tech company needs an open source policy.
The federal law governing patents for inventions and designs. Establishes the USPTO, defines patentable subject matter, and creates enforcement rights. Patent eligibility for software remains a contested area post-Alice.