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.
Intellectual property is one of the most terrifyingly useful tools you have. If you’re a creator or other entrepreneur ready to build a frighteningly powerful brand and business, you need to know how to use it. You don’t have to face the darkness alone, though.
I help entrepreneurs across the U.S. make smart, legally sound decisions about their intellectual property. I’m an attorney in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, but I serve intellectual property clients nationwide.
If you’d like to consult with me, please book a consultation online at kingpatentlaw.com or by calling my office at 312-596-2222 or 217-714-8558.
Please check out the other posts and pages on my website for more information on intellectual property and business law issues. I’m also on most major podcast platforms as “Know Your Rights: Your Intellectual Property and Business Law Playbook” (video on YouTube, Spotify, and Substack only) and on most social media as @kingpatentlaw.
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