In the field of intellectual property, Black’s Law Dictionary defines “misappropriation” as “the common-law tort of using the non-copyrightable information or ideas that an organization collects and disseminates for a profit to compete unfairly against that organization, or copying a work whose creator has not yet claimed or been granted exclusive rights in the work. […] The elements of misappropriation are:  (1) the plaintiff must have invested time, money, or effort to extract the information, (2) the defendant must have taken the information with no similar investment, and (3) the plaintiff must have suffered a competitive injury because of the taking.”

The tort of misappropriation is part of unfair competition law in the common law system.  Misappropriation thus entails the wrongful or dishonest use or borrowing of someone’s property, and is often used to found action in cases where no property right as such has been infringed.  Misappropriation may refer to wrongful borrowing or to the fraudulent appropriation of funds or property entrusted to someone’s care but actually owned by someone else.

For example, Article 3 of the draft Legal Framework for the Protection of Traditional Knowledge in Sri Lanka, 2009, defines “misappropriation” as “(i) acquisition, appropriation or use of traditional knowledge in violation of the provisions of this Act, (ii) deriving benefits from acquisition, appropriation or use of traditional knowledge where the person who acquires, appropriates or uses traditional knowledge is aware of, or could not have been unaware of, or is negligent to become aware of the fact that the traditional knowledge was acquired, appropriated or used by any unfair means and (iii) any commercial activity contrary to honest practices that results in unfair or inequitable benefits from traditional knowledge.”