Protection
A company can protect its confidential information through non-compete and non-disclosure contracts with its employees (within the constraints of employment law, including only restraint that is reasonable in geographic and time scope). The law of protection of confidential information effectively allows a perpetual monopoly in secret information - it does not expire as would a patent. The lack of formal protection, however, means that a third party is not prevented from independently duplicating and using the secret information once it is discovered.
Secret formulae are often protected by restricting the key information to one or two trusted individuals, such as the ingredients of Chartreuse liqueur. The drink has a unique taste created by use of 130 different herbs, and is known to only two of the monks at the monastery.
In the United States, trade secrets are not protected by law in the same manner as trademarks or patents. Specifically, both trademarks and patents are protected under federal statutes, the Lanham Act and Patent Act, respectively. Instead, trade secrets are protected under state laws, and most states have enacted the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA), except for Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, and Texas. One of the differences between patents and trademarks, on the one hand, and trade secrets, on the other, is that trade secret is protected only when the secret is not disclosed.
Read more about this topic: Trade Secret
Famous quotes containing the word protection:
“Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Men speak of natural rights, but I challenge any one to show where in nature any rights existed or were recognized until there was established for their declaration and protection a duly promulgated body of corresponding laws.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)