Informational Articals - Trade Secrets
Trade secrets are classified as specific information that is needed in a business in order to operate effectively on the open market. They can be plans, formulas, processes, techniques, ingredients, and other types of information that are specific to a particular type of business. Recently there have been previous employees of both Pepsi and Coke in the news for attempting to sale trade secrets about how the products are made.
Protecting trade secrets is vital to any type of business because this information isn’t known to the general public. Once their trade secrets get out other companies can copy their products and that affects this businesses ability to generate the same volume of sales as before. While competition is part of the free market system the way in which a business goes about getting the information to do so is protected by law.
If a person is found guilty of attempting to sale or to purchase trade secrets they can be held liable in a court of law. They penalties include fines, attorney fees, possible felony charges, and even jail time in some cases. The laws seem to be getting stricter when it comes to violating trade secrets because courts want to set an example that such behavior will not be tolerated.
If you want to protect your trade secrets to the full extent of the law you need to be very careful who you have working with you to get the patent completed and other important information. You can ask for them to sign a Non-Disclosure Statement which requires them to refrain from discussing your information with anyone or sharing it in any form. This form is a legally binding contract that anyone signing it needs to understand can result in charges being filed against them if they violate it.
In order to be classified as a trade secret the information has to have value to the business that originally held that information. The courts will take a close look at how much of the information is known to the general public, the extent that the employees know about the entire process, the cost of initially developing the trade secret, and how easy it would be for another business to copy the trade secret without inside information.
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