From the course: Understanding Intellectual Property (2014)
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What is a trade secret?
From the course: Understanding Intellectual Property (2014)
What is a trade secret?
What is a trade secret? Well, a trade secret is a fairly important aspect of intellectual property law. But it's also fairly simple. Trade secret is a type of law that protects something that is secret and has value. Those are the, the key elements. Imagine that you have business information that you've managed to keep secret. And because it's secret, it has value. In many cases, companies have information that they make everybody sign confidentiality agreements. All the employees know its secret. It's locked in a safe. And that is trade secret. All of these types of information are covered by trade secret law, as long as the information has value and reasonable efforts are made to maintain its secrecy. Well, what are reasonable efforts to maintain secrecy? Usually, it's a contract for anyone who gets exposed to the secret information. We call this a nondisclosure agreement or an NDA. Some people call them a confidentiality agreement or a CA. In any event, it's a document that…
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