Trade Secret

A trade secret is a valuable piece of information for an enterprise that is treated as confidential and that gives that enterprise a competitive advantage. Theft of trade secrets and other confidential information are frequent incidents in today’s global, highly mobile, and competitive marketplace. Working with inventors, start-up companies, and creators of new technologies, we assist our clients to adopt structures and practices designed to minimize the risk of trade secrets claims being asserted against them and to maximize their abilities to defend against such claims.

We understand our clients’ technologies possess the breadth of experience to identify areas of vulnerability; advisory capabilities to set up policies, programs, technologies, and frameworks to continuously monitor and mitigate trade secrets risks.  There are two kinds of trade secrets concerns: those of the trade secrets owner who needs to protect its secrets, and those of the creator of new products who need to avoid misappropriating another’s secrets, however innocently. We provide counseling to clients with both kinds of incidents.

Our expertise includes providing services for Trade Secret Litigation (against both employees and competitors), developing and negotiating confidentiality agreements with employees, partners, suppliers, and customers, as well as setting up physical security measures to protect valuable trade secrets. Vice versa, we advise clients on avoiding the trade secrets rights of others when developing new products or when hiring from competitors. We also deal with drafting and counter-replying on breach notification.