Trade Secrets

One means to protect ideas underlying your products and services is simply to keep certain information secret. For example, you probably consider your customer list proprietary, and properly so. Computer source code is another example of information that should be kept secret in most instances. The duration of a trade secret is indefinite. For instance, the precise formula for the COCA COLA soft drink has been a trade secret for decades.

Your employees should understand that certain information is proprietary and should not be disclosed outside the company. It is also wise to include provisions in an employment agreement in which employees and independent contractors acknowledge the duty to keep information secret.

The problem with relying on trade secret protection is that once the information is out, you have no legal recourse unless the information was obtained illegitimately. An example of partial failure of trade secret protection is when another company reverse engineers your computer software, uses the concepts discovered, and writes source code from scratch embodying the concepts.