Sixth Circuit cites Professor Dodge on state presumptions against extraterritoriality

Earlier this month, the Sixth Circuit relied on Professor William S. Dodge’s recent article in the UC Davis Law Review to hold that Ohio’s trade secrets act applies extraterritorially. 

In AtriCure, Inc. v. Meng, 2021 WL 211612, an Ohio medical device company sued its Chinese distributor for misappropriating trade secrets. The defendant argued that Ohio’s law did not apply extraterritorially, but the Court of Appeals noted that Ohio is among the states that have rejected a presumption against extraterritoriality for interpreting the scope of state law. The court cited Professor Dodge’s recent survey of state presumptions, Presumptions Against Extraterritoriality in State Law, published last year in the UC Davis Law Review.

Dodge is Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law and John D. Ayer Chair in Business Law at UC Davis School of Law. He is a leading expert on international law, international transactions, and international dispute resolution, who served as Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State from 2011-2012 and as a reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement (Fourth) of Foreign Relations Law from 2012 to 2018. Dodge is a co-author of the casebook Transnational Business Problems and a co-editor of International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change, which won the American Society of International Law’s 2012 certificate of merit. He has authored more than 60 other publications in books and law reviews.