From LQWiki

A trade secret is a form of intellectual property, a non-tangible asset, that brings commercial advantage. A famous trade secret is the recipe for Coca-Cola. The recipe is kept hidden away to avoid it being copied or stolen. Although possible to protect the recipe using patent law or copyright protection, in so doing it would be necessary to publish the recipe and thus give away a "trade secret".

Trade secrets do have some legal protection, but these protections are designed to protect against corporate espionage, not reverse engineering. This lack of protection is done deliberately to encourage inventors to release the details of their invention under patents so that others can build on their work. Trade secrets do have an advantage in that they can be protected indefinitely, but on the other hand, they have no minimum duration of protection.

External links

• trade secrets (en.wikipedia.org)