A secret ingredient is a component of a product that is closely guarded from public disclosure for competitive advantage. Sometimes the ingredient makes a noticeable difference in the way a product performs, looks or tastes; other times it is used for advertising puffery. Companies can go to elaborate lengths to maintain secrecy, repackaging ingredients in one location, partially mixing them in another and relabeling them for shipment to a third, and so on. Secret ingredients are normally not patented because that would result in publication, but they are protected by trade secret laws. Employees who need access to the secret are usually required to sign non-disclosure agreements.
Read more about Secret Ingredient: Notable Secret Ingredients
Famous quotes containing the words secret and/or ingredient:
“I, a virgin, can make my frank boast that I communicate to no mortal man my secret counsels except to such as I have chosen on account of their taciturnity; then, if these secrets are later discovered, I know whom to accuse.”
—Elizabeth I (1533–1603)
“Logic is the last scientific ingredient of Philosophy; its extraction leaves behind only a confusion of non-scientific, pseudo problems.”
—Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970)