Protecting corporate values
The protection of trade secrets is of great importance for companies in order to protect commercially valuable information and know-how and to maintain the associated competitive advantages.
Trade secrets include confidential business or technical information that is neither generally known nor in the public domain, such as manufacturing processes, technical drawings, formulas, customer databases, business and market strategies or research and development plans.
Trade secrets are considered protected if the company can prove that the confidential information has been adequately protected.
Measures
Companies must therefore take active measures to protect their trade secrets.
Trade secrets can be legally protected by various measures. These include, for example
- Contractual regulations: Drawing up contracts (non-disclosure agreements, NDAs) with employees, business partners and suppliers to ensure that sensitive information is kept confidential.
- Technical security precautions: IT security measures, such as encryption techniques, firewalls, passwords, digital watermarks
- Organizational measures: Employee training on how to handle confidential information, documentation of confidentiality processes, regular checks
The Trade Secrets Protection Act
The German Trade Secrets Protection Act, which came into force in April 2019, aims to achieve uniform protection of trade secrets across Europe.
It defines trade secrets as information that is secret, has an economic value and is protected by appropriate confidentiality measures.
In the event of breaches, the law offers claims for injunctive relief, damages and other legal measures against the unauthorized use or disclosure of this information.
Further informationen
The following articles may also be of interest:
Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs): For a patentable development for which a patent application has not yet been filed, a non-disclosure agreement should be drawn up with all parties involved before confidential information is exchanged that should not be made public.
IP Compliance: Establishing an effective protection and control system not only helps to ensure compliance with laws and regulations, but above all to guarantee the protection of your own IP assets and significantly reduce the risk of infringing third-party property rights.
Regarding Philipp Henrichs:
Philipp Henrichs, Attorney at Law and Certified Intellectual Property Lawyer, studied law at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf and the Ruprecht Karls University in Heidelberg. He deals with the legal enforcement and defense of trademark, design, competition and copyright claims.