A Trade Secret Grave Mistake: Not Having an NDA

Failing to protect your confidential business information is not only a grave mistake; it can be fatal. Trade secrets aren’t just for big corporations like Coca-Cola. Your business might have a special recipe, a unique marketing plan, or a customer list that needs protection.

Say you’ve made a new slime formula that will make running a seasonal haunted house less expensive and won’t stain visitors’ clothes. Your business depends on big sales to the companies that run the haunted houses.

You didn’t bother with a patent because you didn’t want the formula to be public when the patent is published, or have the rights expire after 20 years.

You didn’t have employees sign non-disclosure agreements, also commonly called NDAs and confidentiality agreements, and there’s nothing in their employment agreements about keeping confidential company information quiet.

You start to see something being sold by a new competitor that seems suspiciously like your product, but at half the price. The haunted house companies switch to their product, you lose your business, and you are going to have a much harder time going after any employee who leaked the formula than you would have if they’d signed an NDA.

Don’t let your business secrets be a business tragedy. Talk with an intellectual property attorney about the best ways to keep them secret so you can keep doing what you do best and not be up at 3:00 am wondering if you’re protected against loose lips. That’s the time for worrying about the thing that may be under the bed.