Why It is Important to Protect Your Trade Secrets

How would you feel, if you find that one of your employees is sharing your trade secrets with your rival companies? You will definitely be surprised and disappointed! And if you are not adequately equipped, even your business could come to a halt as well. Since more and more cases regarding leaking out trade secrets to a third party or rivals and computer fraud are occurring these days, it has become very important to take initiatives to protect your trade secrets. Explore this article and learn more about this.

Let me begin with very interesting article that was published in Charlotte Business Journal on August 17, 2012. According to the news - Bridgetree wins $4.2 million jury award against Red F Marketing of Charlotte and others, including its founder, Dan Roselli, in a software trade-secrets case.

After going through the article, I conducted some online research and found that Teng Li – former vice president of Bridgetree, chief technical officer and chief of privacy and security – left Bridgetree suddenly and without warning, and unlawfully took with him proprietary software from Bridgetree’s computers. That is not all, Li also deleted files that he possessed that were critical to Bridgetree’s business and then he joined Red F, a small advertising agency headquartered in Charlotte NC, along with 17 Bridgetree employees in Xian, China, who Li induced to leave Bridgetree.

What Teng Li and others did, was a very serious case of violation of state and federal laws. Bridgetree filed a lawsuit in federal court against Daniel Roselli – co-owner of Packard Place, Teng Li, Jason Li, Mali Xu, Mark Epperly, Elton T. Scripter, Red F Marketing and Target Point and wins $4.2 million jury award at the end.

Since Bridgetree manages the business carefully, and the company has no debt and a strong balance sheet, it helped the company not only to survive the damage that Teng Li and his co-conspirators caused, but it has also grown the business, investing in their infrastructure and recruiting new employees.

Many of you might be quite aware of the fact that in June at the time of a patent lawsuit between Apple and Samsung, the California court granted Apple an injunction against Samsung that banned the sale of the Nexus in the United States. Apple accused Samsung of infringing on seven patents. These include the "pinch and zoom" capability of iDevices and "bounceback" effect.

However, not all companies have the potential to fight these types of evils. Why take chances? Since you invest a lot in your business to perfect certain methods in order to give the business a competitive edge over your rivals, you should take initiatives to protect trade secret. You may consider certain tools in this regard. Some of these are Trade Secret Policy, Non-disclosure Agreements (NDAs), Employment agreement, and Security Systems, etc. Each of these tools will help you to protect your trade secrets from being misappropriated, sabotaged, lost or stolen.