Practice Areas

Trade Secrets

Nikolai & Mersereau, P.A. Protects Your Confidential Business Information

Successful businesses recognize the importance of carefully guarding their confidential corporate information, be it pricing policies, customer lists, manufacturing techniques or product formulas.  The law provides various means for protecting such information, but only if you make reasonable efforts to maintain such information in secrecy.  When reasonable efforts are made, the courts can and will impose serious civil and criminal sanctions against one who misappropriates or unlawfully uses such information.

Confidentiality Agreements

In most organizations, maintaining confidential information is only possible if proper procedures are established and followed consistently.  For example, anyone, including your own employees, vendors or potential customers, who will be given access to confidential business information should first be required to sign an agreement designed to protect you against improper disclosure of the information to third parties.  Such agreements must be drafted broadly enough to meet your needs, yet not be written or presented to the person in such a way that a court would find the agreement itself illegal or unenforceable.  Nikolai & Mersereau, P.A. is able to work with you to prepare and administer agreements designed to meet your unique needs.

Other Procedures

An integrated plan for protecting trade secrets should include procedures for designating what information is confidential and how to limit access to such information.  Reasonable steps must be taken to safeguard information which is commensurate with its value to your business.  Such a plan should also include procedures which make it possible to determine whether any confidential information has been taken and, if so, by whom.  Proof of trade secret theft is a prerequisite to the civil and criminal remedies under the law.  While it is often difficult to prove the theft of trade secrets, the task is simplified if proper procedures were consistently observed before the theft occurred.
 
 
Protecting Yourself From A Trade Secret Claim

Another important part of an integrated intellectual property plan is a set of procedures and policies which help insulate your company from trade secret claims.  Policies related to hiring technical and sales personnel from competitors should be developed.  Procedures governing the conditions under which you will accept a new product idea submissions from outsiders should be established.  Policies related to the documentation of new ideas should also be developed.  Proper documentation of new ideas will not only help resolve trade secret claims but may also be beneficial to your patent activities.

For more information about protecting your trade secrets, please contact Nikolai & Mersereau, P.A. at 612.339.7461 .  Our firm specializes in the field of law pertaining to these aspects of intellectual property law.