Business secrets: Trade secrets (also known as a trade secret) information is obtained from financial investments, intellectual, undisclosed and potentially used in business .
As defined by the Law on Intellectual Property, the information is considered confidential business must meet the following conditions:
- There is a common understanding;
- Ability to apply in business and when used will give the holder the information advantage over those who do not hold or use it;
- Being the owner of the security measures necessary to undisclosed and not easily accessible
For example, the recipe called mini puzzle Coca Cola is a trade secret of Coca Cola. Only a few companies know this formula; and it is kept in a secret bank vault in Atlanta, Georgia; who knows this secret recipe signed nondisclosure. Because the decision to keep it secret formula instead of being signed patented, so far, Coca Cola is still the only enterprise can produce special drinks are popular worldwide. If this formula is patented (only protected up to 20 years, then will become the common property of humanity), all components and processing stages Coca Cola will be disclosed , and the whole world can produce Coca Cola.
Business secrets may be related to different types of information, such as engineering and science (production formula, structural engineering, computer code, test data ...); Commercial (list of suppliers and customers, marketing strategies, advertising and business, results of market research, sales methods ...); financial (internal price structure, price list ...); negative information (deadlock in research, technical solutions have been withdrawn ...) ....
Also under the provisions of intellectual property law, the following confidential information is not protected by trade secret meaning as personal secrets, such as marital status, personal assets, confidential management state secrets defense, security, and other confidential information relating to the business.
Industrial property rights to business secrets are established on the basis of a legally trade secrets and confidential conduct of such business secrets;
Today, the protection of business enterprises are very interested by many factors. In particular, the level of competition in the increasingly fierce market competition should definitely did not want to share the same information. Moreover, when employees have the freedom to choose and change the workplace, there is a high possibility that they bring information to the new workplace that normally are competitors of the company old. Finally, self-confidential information is not a technical solution should not be any protection is the name of the invention; and also can not be justified for public protection registration by crystals of information security.
With trade secrets, the owner has the right to possess, use and dispose of according to law. These infringements of trade secret rights in trade secrets include: access, income information under trade secret by opposing the security measures of legal ownership; disclosure and use of confidential information belonging to business without the permission of the owners of trade secrets; security breach of contract or deception, abusing the trust of the people have a duty of confidentiality to access, collect and disclose information under trade secret; approach, collecting information under trade secret of another person who is doing the procedure prescribed by law relating to business, circulation procedures by product or against the security measures State agency or use such information for commercial purposes, please licenses relating to the business or product circulation.
Protection methods:
When it detects subject "stolen" or unauthorized disclosure of your trade secrets; owners of trade secrets may request termination of the offending party acts and damages as a result of the violation; or require state agencies to take measures to handle such a fine; confiscation of exhibits, means profits earned from performing acts ... or other measures in accordance with the law on competition and intellectual property.
However, although the State agency competent to apply the law measures to handle the infringement to trade secrets; the damage caused by the breach caused can not make a full recovery. Therefore, entities owned business secrets must take measures, strategic management and protection of trade secrets is not appropriate to fall into a "take care of new cattle shed".
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has implications for businesses owned trade secret protection 10 basic strategy; consisting of:
- Identification of business secrets: businesses should consider when deciding the information is considered a trade secret. Meanwhile, businesses will have to assess factors such as: the scope of the information disclosed; ability of information security; value of information for the enterprise and competition; difficult for others to collect and access information ...
- Develop protection policy: policy protection of business secrets must be transparent and clear; must be able to demonstrate commitment to the protection of significant importance in the case of conducting the proceedings ...
- Education staff: to limit the disclosure of information due to inadvertent; internal training staff from the new awareness of information security; frequent reminders, check violations ...
- Restrict access: only reveal trade secrets to those who need to know such information; and restrict the access of each employee in the database information security ...
- Mark Items marked building materials systems and unified raise awareness of employees to avoid inadvertent disclosure of information.
- Isolate and protect the physical: can implement measures such as locked filing separately stored; access control; Shredded information; regular monitoring
- Isolation and protection of electronic data: such as access control; encryption, firewall built; monitoring test data to and from ...
- Restrict access to public establishments: check out to the customer; to monitor the movement of visitors in the company ...
- For the third parties: establish confidentiality agreements, limiting access on demand only need to know ...
- Provide Voluntary shared according to the level of exploitation; restrict access of subjects offered; establish confidentiality agreements ...
In brief; when choosing a method of protection for intellectual property, businesses need to identify and appreciate the object to be protected in order to make appropriate decisions. For objects likely to be found when applying reverse engineering, enterprises should conduct public protection registration in the name of the patent / utility solutions, layout design of semiconductor integrated circuits, or industrial design. For the remaining objects, deeming that keep them in secrecy will create competitive advantage for their businesses to protect the name of the business secrets of the security measures and strict management.
