California Trade Secret San Diego Details

Trade Secrets Generally

Trade secrets are intellectual property rights that protect the technical and business information.

A trade secret is economically valuable information not generally known and not readily ascertainable by proper means by persons who might derive economic value from the disclosure or use of the information. To qualify as a trade secret, reasonable efforts must be made to protect the secrecy of the information.

Common forms and types of trade secrets include financial, business, scientific, technical, economic, engineering, plans, formulas, designs, software programs, and software source code information. It is possible to protect the know-how of a business using both patents and trade secrets.

Violation of Trade Secret Rights

A violation of a trade secret protection is referred to as a misappropriation. Examples of misappropriation include acquiring information improperly either purposefully or by accident or mistake, using or disclosing the information of another that was acquired from the rightful owner in violation of a duty to maintain confidentiality or through theft, bribery, misrepresentation, breach of inducement, or breach of duty to maintain secrecy.

Independent discovery, reverse engineering, and observing the public domain will not give rise to a claim of misappropriation.

Duration of Protection

Trade secret protection exists until the protected information is no longer protected by duties of confidentiality.