Qualifying Information as a Trade Secret

The following are factors to consider in determining whether information may qualify as a trade secret.

• How widely known is the information outside the corporation? The more widely the information has been disseminated outside one's business, the less likely the information will qualify as a trade secret.
  
  
• Who within the corporation has knowledge of the information? The fewer the people with knowledge of the information inside the company, the more likely the information will qualify as a trade secret.
  
  
• How extensive are the measures taken by the corporation to guard the secrecy of the information? If the corporation has not taken adequate security measures to sufficiently protect vital information or has disclosed any of this information to a third party, including joint venture partners or subcontractors, without adequate confidentiality agreements, trade secret protection is unlikely.
  
  
• How valuable is the information to the corporation and the corporation's competitors? The more valuable the information, the more likely it will qualify as a trade secret.
  
  
• How much capital did the corporation expend in developing or acquiring the information? The more time, effort, and money expended to develop the information, the more likely courts are willing to classify the information as a trade secret.
  
  
• How difficult would it be for others to acquire or duplicate the trade secret information? If the information is relatively easy to duplicate or reverse engineer, the corporation should not attempt to have the information protected as a trade secret. (Reverse engineering is a process of starting with a publicly available product and working backwards by examining the product to find out how it was developed or what it comprises, thereby discovering the trade secret.)