Any sensitive business information that gives a company a competitive edge can be considered a trade secret. They are frequently employed when an invention is not qualified for a patent or when the creator does not want to publicly divulge the creation's "secret," as required by a patent.
Trade secrets by their very nature have a commercial value since they are kept hidden from competitors or potential competitors. The owner of a trade secret is required to take proactive measures to protect the confidentiality of the information.
The most famous business secret is the recipe of Coca-Cola. It is also protected by IP called trade secret.
IMPORTANCE OF TRADE SECRETS
For a variety of reasons, the use of trade secrets in the industrial economy has significantly expanded in recent years. There are primarily two causes for this. The first is that trade secrets are less certain than other types of intellectual property like patents, trademarks, and copyrights. Second, trade secrets are now more important than ever since, in many industries, technology is evolving at such a rapid pace that it has outpaced the protections afforded by the laws already in place.
The relative simplicity of establishing and managing trade secret rights is another important element that has raised the value of trade secrets. Government grants, such as those for patents, are not subject to bureaucratic delays or multiyear waiting periods. Contrarily, trade secret rights can be formed through the explicit actions or consent of the interested parties. A trade secret right exists as long as confidentiality is upheld and begins with the conception of the idea in some concrete form. Trade secrets can be used to protect knowledge that does not fall within the legal definition of intellectual property and is not otherwise protected by national laws governing intellectual property.
TRADE SECRETS AND LAW
By enacting the Uniform Trade Secrets Act in 1985, the United States of America became the first nation to provide data exclusivity legal protection, and it has since pursued it assiduously. To harmonize trade secret law, the US Act was created.
Trade secrets and sensitive information are not uniformly protected by law in India. It is protected by many, unrelated clauses in different statutes. According to Section 272 of the Contract Act, of 1872, which states that covenants shall be structured in such a way that they protect the firm's confidentiality while also allowing the employee to work in his preferred profession, Indian courts have recognized trade secret protection based on equity principles and common law remedies for breach of confidence and breach of contract. Businesses must safeguard their trade secrets, which is why service agreements must have a restricted clause to guarantee that the firm's trade secrets are properly safeguarded.
Trade secret protection is one of the policy statements identified as an important research and research area for future policymaking. It is high time to enact separate intellectual property statutes under intellectual property law to secure the rights of individuals or companies that possess trade secrets.
