Unlike a trademark or patent, a trade secret's value depends on it staying confidential, so protection comes through contracts, access controls, and confidentiality obligations rather than a public registry.
This includes drafting non-disclosure agreements, employee confidentiality provisions, and other contractual protections designed to hold up if confidential information is later misused or disclosed. Employee-side confidentiality obligations are anchored in our employment contracts work.
Where confidential information has been improperly disclosed or used — by a former employee, a business partner, or someone who obtained it improperly — this practice pursues legal action to address the breach and the resulting harm. Misuse claims are litigated with our litigation & advocacy team.
Having properly drafted confidentiality agreements in place beforehand meaningfully strengthens the ability to take action if a trade secret is later compromised.
A trade secret claim generally depends on showing that reasonable steps were actually taken to keep specific information confidential, and a company that labels virtually every document "confidential" as a blanket habit, without meaningfully restricting access or actually treating most of it as genuinely secret in practice, can find this pattern used against it — arguing that a label applied indiscriminately to everything doesn't reflect a real, differentiated effort to protect what's actually valuable and sensitive. Innovations better suited to registered protection are assessed against the patent route.
We help businesses build a genuine, differentiated confidentiality practice — identifying what actually needs protection, restricting access meaningfully for that specific information, and reserving the confidential label for material that's truly treated as such — since this kind of real, demonstrable practice holds up far better than a blanket label applied to everything without real differentiation behind it.
The point at which an employee with access to genuine trade secrets leaves the company is one of the highest-risk moments for confidential information, and a structured exit process — a clear reminder of ongoing confidentiality obligations, a review of what the departing employee had access to, confirmation that company materials and access have been properly returned or revoked — meaningfully reduces the risk of information leaving with the person who had access to it.
We help companies build this process as a standard, deliberate part of every departure involving access to genuinely sensitive information, rather than treating it as an afterthought handled inconsistently or only remembered after a departure has already raised concerns.
Generally, information that has commercial value because it's confidential and that you've taken reasonable steps to keep confidential — formulas, processes, customer lists, and similar proprietary information.
Through properly drafted confidentiality agreements, access controls, and employee obligations — the goal is having strong contractual protection in place before any misuse occurs.
We can pursue legal action to address the breach, though having a properly drafted confidentiality agreement in place beforehand significantly strengthens this position.
Yes, potentially — a blanket label applied without real access restrictions can undermine a claim that reasonable steps were genuinely taken to protect specific, truly sensitive information.
We recommend a structured exit process — reviewing their access, confirming return of materials, and reminding them of ongoing confidentiality obligations, applied consistently for every departure involving sensitive access.
We can review your existing practices honestly and identify gaps between what's labeled confidential and what's actually being treated and protected as such in practice.
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