Historically, if someone wanted to steal intellectual property, like a trade secret, proprietary code, or design file, the perpetrator needed an insider with a flash drive or a corporate spy. If someone wanted to infringe upon public media, they waited for the owner to release it and then pirated it.

Today, the line between securing a network and securing legal rights (IP protection) has blurred into the same job.

1. AI Scraping Turned Public Data into Stolen IP

In the past, putting content on a public website meant it was visible, but copying it at scale was hard. Now, automated LLM bots and web scrapers vacuum up billions of data points, such as articles, code, images and database listings, to train competing commercial AI models.

• The IP Problem: Those scrapers are stealing copyrighted assets and trade secrets.
  

• The Web Security Fix: Sending cease-and-desist letters to a million unknown bots is simply not productive. Companies now use firewalls, rate-limiting, CAPTCHAs, and bot-mitigation software (web security) to physically block IP theft in real time. [1]
  

2. Code, Trade Secrets, and Datasets Live in the Cloud

A company’s most valuable IP is no longer locked in a physical safe: it lives in GitHub repositories, cloud databases, and SaaS platforms.

If a hacker breaches an S3 bucket or launches a phishing attack on a developer, they aren't just committing a cybercrime; they are instantly exfiltrating the company's core IP (like proprietary algorithms, drug formulas, or unreleased product blueprints). Zero Trust architecture, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and encryption are now the primary "locks" on a company's patents and trade secrets.

3. Brand Protection and Counterfeiting Go Automated

If someone creates a fake website impersonating a brand, selling knockoff products, or stealing software licenses, sending manual legal takedowns is too slow.

IP teams now rely heavily on cybersecurity infrastructure, like domain monitoring, automated threat intelligence, and cybersecurity vendors, to instantly flag and shut down phishing domains, spoofed sites, and illicit API scrapers before they destroy brand equity. [2]

4. Cybersecurity Compliance as a Legal Prerequisite

If trade secrets are stolen and the rights-holder wanted to sue the thief in court under laws like the US Defend Trade Secrets Act, they’d have to prove that they undertook "reasonable measures" to keep the information secret.[3]

If web security was unreliable, having no access controls, weak passwords, unencrypted databases, a judge will, in all probability, dismiss the IP case out of court, ruling that one failed to treat it like a secret. Good web security is now legally required just to hold onto IP rights.

Feature written by Kushraj Singh, Senior Legal Correspondent, The Global IP Magazine.

Email Kushraj: newsdesk@northonsprmarketing.com