Trade Secrets v. Patents: The New Calculus
R. Mark Halligan · 2010
here are four types of intellectual property rights: patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. Only two of these intellectual property rights protect information: patents and trade secrets. Patents protect information by dedicating the information to the public in return for a limited monopoly. Trade secrets protect information with independent competitive value derived from the secrecy of the information. The birth of every patent starts out as a trade secret. At the time of conception, the idea or information can only be protected by keeping it secret. However, a subsequent decision needs to be made to determine whether or not to convert the trade secret asset into a patent asset. The traditional approach is based on the NUN factors: novelty, usefulness, and nonobviousness. If the trade secret asset meets the patentability requirements, then the decision tree often dictates that the