Rowe, Elizabeth A. --- "The Challenge of Protecting Trade Secret Information in a Digital World" [2009] ELECD 518; in Brauneis, F. Robert (ed), "Intellectual Property Protection of Fact-based Works" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: Intellectual Property Protection of Fact-based Works

Editor(s): Brauneis, F. Robert

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848441835

Section: Chapter 8

Section Title: The Challenge of Protecting Trade Secret Information in a Digital World

Author(s): Rowe, Elizabeth A.

Number of pages: 9

Extract:

8. The challenge of protecting trade
secret information in a digital world
Elizabeth A. Rowe

I. INTRODUCTION
Trade secret law provides protection for facts, ideas, inventions and informa-
tion. Part of the appeal of choosing trade secret protection over other kinds of
intellectual property protection, is the relative ease with which a business can
claim such protection and the broad scope of information that is protectable.1
A business can, for example, protect trade secrets without complying with a
government registration system,2 and without observing any specified formal-
ities. It is also not difficult to identify which materials might be eligible for
trade secret protection. A trade secret can be any information of value used in
one's business that has been kept secret and provides an economic advantage
over competitors.3 Thus, the kinds of information that can be protected include
everything from customer lists to marketing strategies and chemical formu-
las.4 Accordingly, the kind of proprietary information and innovative concepts
that tend to fall outside the copyright paradigm are within the ambit of trade
secret law.



1 See Taylor, Brooks W. (2005), `You Can't Say That!: Enjoining Publication of
Trade Secrets Despite the First Amendment', 9 Computer L. Rev. & Tech. J. 393,
394­95 (discussing reasons why corporations rely on trade secret protection).
2 Copyright protection may attach without registration, but registration is
necessary before a plaintiff files suit for infringement. Thus, prior to registration, a
copyright owner is in a similar situation to the ...