The European Union Trade-Secrets Directive: To-Dos for Companies?

Protecting trade secrets plays a key role for companies of all sizes and throughout all industries. Secret »know-how» provides a crucial edge over competitors, gives a time advantage, and may help in securing market shares. Questions of know-how protection come into play every time a company deliberately decides to keep information secret rather than registering its intellectual property (IP), e.g., as a patent or a design. Furthermore, the secrecy of know-how may close gaps where no IP rights exist, e.g., for pure commercial or nonpatentable knowledge. Here the confidentiality shields the know-how from unauthorized access and exploitation by third parties. © 2012 IEEE.