Trade secret

A trade secret is a form of intellectual property. If you have a business that depends on a special product or formula for success that would undermine the viability of your business if it were copied, than you have to worry about trade secrets.

Wikipedia, the free, on-line encyclopedia says:

A trade secret is a formula, practice, process, design, instrument, pattern, or compilation of information which is not generally known or reasonably ascertainable, by which a business can obtain an economic advantage over competitors or customers. In some jurisdictions, such secrets are referred to as "confidential information" or "classified information".

Classified information is to the military what its formula is to Coca Cola. Read the whole Wikipedia article and follow its links.

Trade secrets are tricky to protect. You want enough information about what you're doing out there so people will buy it, but you don't want the actual trade secret known because others could copy it and beat you out. And, how do you protect yourself against an employee gaining access to it and harming you?

My own opinion: the concern over trade secrets being known is "mis-overhyped." The secret of all business is in the implementation. You can protect yourself by requiring all employs to not share information about their work outside the company. You can better protect yourself by being the best company doing what you're doing so that others won't be able to out-compete you no matter what they know about you.

You should read the whole Wikipedia article. And Post a comment. And read the whole Wikipedia article. It's a good one.

Entrepreneurship 2.0 is my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.