Question

(a) Define ‘trade secret’. (b) What must you do to protect your company’s trade secrets? (c) Do you think all wrongful taking of protected trade secrets should be a crime, punishable by criminal fines and prison? Or would civil (tort and/or contract) remedies provide enough protection? Explain your views.

Answer 1

Answer:-

(a)

?A trade secret can be defined as an important secretive technique that a company uses in its manufacturing or other processes that is considered as a very critical device

?A trade secret is only know to the top leaders in a company or organization and mostly used to survive a competitive market and maintain as well as expand a market share.

(b)To protect a trade secret the following tactics should be followed:

?Identify top loyal officials who cannot by any chance leak the trade secret.

?Have the individuals who have access the the trade secret to a binding oath to face legal consequences in an event where the secret is leaked

?Always ensures that there enough barriers and security measures to make the trade secret confidential

?Provide proper training to staff on the confidentiality of the secret and how to maintain it

?Regularly updating security measures to ensure that the secret does not become vulnerable especially with the fast changing technological changes

(c) In my opinion, the wrongful taking of protected trade secrets should be punishable in form of civil remedies to provide enough protection becuase:

?Criminal fines can easily be paid by rich competitors who steal or attempt to steal the trade secret, making the lesson not be learnt.

?Trade competitors need each other and should therefore settle such disputes amicably without any painful legal consequences

?Contract remedies eliminate bad blood between trade competitors and therefore make them learn to respect each other's boundaries in terms of secrets