Get a Confidentiality Agreement to Protect Your Trade Secrets

Posted by Law Links on November 16th, 2020

Many businesses develop their unique ways to handle information or make products. If you believe that yours is doing much better than your competitors, they will want to know how you succeed. Thus, regardless of the size of your business, a confidentiality agreement should be mandatory as a means to secure your trade secrets. It will also give you a competitive edge and help your business grow and continue thriving over the years.

Also known as the ‘nondisclosure agreement’, it will require essential persons in your company to sign them in order to maintain the confidentiality of essential information, such as your company’s trade secrets. These persons may include your secretary or an executive, or anyone who may pose a concern while dealing with confidential data. However, you cannot use a confidentiality agreement if the information you want to hide is already widely known or is proven to be the property of another person or entity. Courts may hesitate to enforce it if it is broadly used or applied for non-confidential information.

When entering into a confidentiality agreement, you need to be specific on the types of information that cannot be disclosed at all costs. A person may not be able to comply with it if they are unaware of the information they cannot discuss. So, be as clear as possible to ensure the secret or confidential information is properly protected. Moreover, keep in mind that the goal of this agreement is to prevent an employee from disclosing that information in the first place.

You also need to disclose where and when an employee may be required to reveal the trade secrets. In some cases, they may need to share information to outsiders as required by their job or responsibility to you, such as when producing a patent. Be sure to indicate exceptions in the confidentiality agreement along with the steps your employee must take to protect the information, such as making the receiving party sign an NDA, getting approved by management, or seeking legal approval before disclosure.

Consider consulting with an expert on legal documents to find out how you can best create an airtight confidentiality agreement. You can also get templates from them, which you can download, electronically sign, and print, so the NDA will be ready in no time.

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