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Trade Secrets
Protecting Trade Secrets
Grace J. Fishel, Intellectual Property Lawyer, is here to help you protect your trade secrets. Make sure what makes you unique as a business remains your own. We handle nondisclousure agreements (NDAs) and more for our clients. Contact us to find out what we can do for you.
Identifying trade secrets
A trade secret is any business information that derives its value from being secret. A trade secret can be a formula (such as the Colonel's Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe or the recipe for Coca-Cola), a pattern, plans and designs, a process, method, or technique (such as a particular process or method to manufacture an item), sources of supply, customer lists, profit margins, etc. Every business has trade secrets.
Maintaining trade secrets
Protecting trade secrets is important, if for no other reason, than making sure that the time, money, and energy you spent building your business is not wasted. Once you identify your trade secrets, you must take "reasonable precautions" to protect them. What is considered legally reasonable will vary, but at a minimum, your employees should have contractual obligations not to disclose and use your trade secrets outside the scope of their employment. Putting the word "Confidential" or other clear indication of secrecy should be used on documents and disclosed within the company only to those who have a need to know. If you must disclose your trade secret to outsiders, those receiving it should know that it is a trade secret and sign a Nondisclosure Agreement/Confidentiality Agreement beforehand. Using NDAs with some but not all third parties may release all of them, so having a consistent policy is important.
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