Overview
Trade secrets differ from trademarks and patents in that they don't need formal registration. Protection instead rests on the information staying genuinely confidential and on contractual clauses preventing disclosure by parties aware of it.
Trade secret protection grows more important for companies whose business model rests on specialized internal knowledge, like a formula, algorithm, or customer list not easily obtained from another source.
Regulatory Basis
Trade secrets are protected through general contract and civil liability provisions, alongside carefully drafted contractual clauses that explicitly state confidentiality obligations and the consequences of breach.
How We Protect Trade Secrets
We begin by identifying the information that genuinely deserves treatment as a trade secret, then draft non-disclosure agreements and internal policies governing the handling of this information.
If a trade secret leaks to an outside party, we assess the source of the leak and the company's regulatory position to act, whether through a formal notice or a judicial claim for compensation.
Who Needs This Service
A company whose business model rests on specialized internal knowledge that needs carefully drafted non-disclosure agreements for its employees and partners.
A company that discovers a former employee or partner leaked sensitive information to a competing party and needs their position assessed to act on it.
We notice that many non-disclosure agreements used locally are copied from generic templates available online without tailoring them to the actual information the company needs to protect, making the agreement too broad to prove that a specific piece of information was actually a protected trade secret when a dispute arises, rather than a clear definition of what counts as a trade secret in the context of the company's specific activity.
Additional Considerations
Employment contracts deserve a parallel review under our employment contracts service to ensure sufficiently specific non-disclosure clauses.
When full disclosure isn't suitable for protecting an innovation through a patent, this service remains a direct alternative under our patents and industrial property service.
Common Questions
Do trade secrets need formal registration like trademarks?
No, protection rests on the information genuinely staying confidential and on carefully drafted contractual clauses, not on formal registration with a competent authority.
What do we do if a former employee leaks sensitive information to a competitor?
We first assess the non-disclosure clauses in their contract and the company's regulatory position, before acting through a formal notice or a judicial claim for compensation.