Trade Secrets

Protecting Your Trade Secrets

As your business grows, you develop trade secrets that help your company succeed. Examples of trade secrets include detailed customer data, a unique computer code, a secret recipe, or a special assembly process that speeds up manufacturing. Regardless of the solution, your trade secret needs protection. A trade secret can be any business practice, information, or tool that helps your business succeed and that you want to keep confidential.

In practice, many people may have access to a company’s trade secrets. Employees, independent contractors and temporary workers make your trade secrets vulnerable.

The best way to protect your trade secrets is to require employees to sign an employee agreement that includes a confidentiality and non-competition clause. This agreement legally prohibits your employees from sharing trade secrets with others or using them for his or her personal benefit.

However, nondisclosure agreements will not protect your company if your information is stolen by another person or company, but there are other methods of protecting your rights if your trade secrets are stolen. The attorneys at Feldman Law Group can help determine your options for protecting your trade secrets.

Experienced Legal Counsel

The experienced lawyers at Feldman Law Group help clients understand the protections available under the law.  We guide clients through the legal process to ensure that trade secrets are properly protected.  Together we work with clients to protect their assets and minimize risk.

Ways to Protect Your Trade Secrets

How do you protect your trade secrets? The law handles them a little differently from patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

Unlike patents, trademarks, and copyrights, trade secrets are not protected by registering them with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Feldman Law Group can help you understand the protections available and advise you about how to protect your valuable secrets. We can identify the kinds of trade secrets your business has and advise you about developing practical procedures for giving access to the information when needed while still maintaining confidentiality.

Nondisclosure Agreements

Some of the most effective methods of protecting trade secrets are within a company’s control. For example, under most states’ laws, a person who agrees to keep business secrets confidential is prohibited from disclosing them to others or using them for personal or commercial gain. This type of agreement is typically called a “nondisclosure agreement” or “confidentiality agreement.”  An employee who signs this type of agreement is forbidden to pass an employer’s information along to others or to use it for his or her own benefit.