Protect Innovation with Trade Secrets

Hey everyone! So, what exactly is a trade secret and how can it help protect your ideas? I’m JD Houvener, a patent attorney and owner of Bold Patent Law Firm. I also wrote Bold Ideas: The Inventor’s Guide to Patents. You can grab a copy of my book and a few other helpful guides from the link below. Let’s dive in!

A trade secret is a bit different from things like patents. It’s actually a concept in law, and each state handles it a bit differently. Unlike patents, there’s no federal registration or award for having a trade secret. Instead, it’s about meeting a few key criteria:

1. The information must be valuable and not easily known by competitors or the public.
2. You must take reasonable steps to keep it a secret.
3. It can’t be something that’s readily available to others.

If you’ve got those three things, then you likely have a trade secret. And honestly, every business, from small mom-and-pop shops to huge corporations, has trade secrets. It’s what helps you stay competitive.

Now, how can you use trade secrets to protect your ideas? Well, it’s tricky. The best way to protect an invention is usually by getting a patent. But sometimes, especially for ideas that might be hard to enforce with a patent or that are more like internal processes, trade secrets are a better option.

Big companies, for example, have tons of people brainstorming and coming up with ideas. They can test those ideas over time and decide which ones to move forward with. Smaller companies can do something similar—keeping a trade secret until the time is right to patent it, or until resources allow.

But here’s the catch: If you’re keeping a trade secret, you need to protect it carefully. This might mean working with an attorney to draft contracts with employees or contractors. It’s important to ensure that everything they create while working for you—whether it’s a patentable invention or a trade secret—belongs to the company.

Don’t forget about the importance of employment law here. You’ll want to have strong agreements in place to protect your intellectual property. These agreements should clarify what’s confidential and make sure that when someone leaves the company, they’re not taking any secrets with them.

Misappropriation—when someone takes your trade secret and shares it with a competitor—is a real concern. You’ll need to be able to spot and address this if it happens.

In short, trade secrets are all about trust. Trust between you, your employees, and anyone else involved. Keep your information secure and protect your competitive edge!

Hope that helps clear things up. I’m JD Houvener from Bold Patent Law Firm. Have a great day, and go big, go bold!