People often ask:

Yes. We help companies establish legally defensible confidentiality infrastructure, document human contributions and inventive activity, monitor for unauthorized disclosure, and pursue enforcement when misappropriation occurs.

Almost any information that gives you an edge because others don't have it, such as formulas, processes, source code, algorithms, customer and supplier lists, pricing models, manufacturing know-how, even negotiation strategy. Two things have to be true: the information has to derive real economic value from not being generally known, and you have to take reasonable measures to keep it secret. Meet both and protection can last as long as the secret does. There is no limit The Coca-Cola formula has outlived every patent its era could have produced

Courts look for a deliberate record of reasonable measures taken to keep your secrets secret, such as: confidentiality agreements, access controls and need-to-know limits, marking and segregation of sensitive material, employee onboarding and exit protocols, and monitoring. We build and maintain that record for you, including help with drafting written policies and procedures that establish legally cognizable trade-secret status, processes for secure storage with chain-of-custody documentation that withstands adversarial scrutiny, protocols for having an attorney observe and document sensitive negotiations so there is a contemporaneous account of what was shared and with whom.

A patent grants a public, time-limited monopoly in exchange for disclosure. A trade secret derives its value from perpetual confidentiality. The right choice depends on whether your innovation can be reverse-engineered and how long your competitive window needs to last. We will help you choose the right strategy.

We match the instrument to the relationship: one-way NDAs for vendor, investor, and contractor disclosures; mutual NDAs for partnerships, joint development, and diligence; and, where the goal is to preserve optionality, "no-disclosure" agreements that structure the relationship so no confidential information changes hands at all while the parties evaluate fit. Around those, we strengthen the IP-specific provisions in your employment, contractor, work-for-hire, and founders' agreements with assignment, confidentiality, and post-employment terms drafted to keep ownership where it belongs.

Often, yes, depending on scale. This a structural decision with real leverage. An IP holding company separates your most valuable assets from operational liability, so a claim against the operating business doesn't reach the crown jewels; it also centralizes ownership, cleans up chain of title for financing and diligence, and positions the portfolio for licensing or a clean exit. The right jurisdiction depends on liability, financing, treaty, and tax considerations, and a holding structure has to carry genuine economic substance and defensible transfer pricing to hold up. To manage risks, we form the entity and coordinate with your tax advisors to get the structure right rather than merely convenient.

Move deliberately and early. Before departure, we help you identify exactly what that person had access to, confirm the confidentiality and assignment obligations already in place, and run a clean exit that puts those obligations in writing. After departure, our job-posting and insider-threat monitoring watches for signals of misappropriation, and if the evidence appears, misappropriation claims under the Defend Trade Secrets Act and state law don't require a non-compete to succeed. That matters, because restrictive covenants vary sharply by jurisdiction. For example, California bars them almost entirely, and the "inevitable disclosure" doctrine is accepted in some states and rejected in others, so we lead with the trade-secret record and coordinate employment counsel where a covenant is genuinely in play.

Contact us immediately. Speed matters in trade secret cases. We will help you assess the situation, build an evidentiary record, decide on an enforcement strategy, and coordinate with litigation counsel when needed.

Carefully. This is the paradox at the center of every trade-secret dispute, because a public lawsuit can destroy the very thing you're suing to protect. We build an enforcement strategy designed around protecting the asset, not just winning the point: assessing your rights and damages under the Defend Trade Secrets Act and state law, applying graduated pressure through cease-and-desist demands and pre-litigation correspondence, and resolving matters by negotiated settlement wherever possible, including private arbitration where confidentiality is paramount. When a matter must go to federal court, such as for an ex parte seizure order, a TRO, or full merits relief, we coordinate referrals and help preserve confidentiality through the tools the law provides, including protective orders, sealed filings, and the DTSA's own confidentiality safeguards.

Yes, and its reach may surprise you. The Defend Trade Secrets Act gives you a federal claim for misappropriation tied to US interstate or foreign commerce, and it can extend to conduct outside the United States where the wrongdoer is a US person or entity, or where an act in furtherance of the theft touched the US. Your home country almost certainly protects trade secrets too — every WTO member is bound by the TRIPS Agreement to do so, and the EU has harmonized protection across its member states, but standards and remedies vary. We assess where your leverage is strongest and coordinate local counsel to enforce in the jurisdictions that matter.

There is no global trade-secret registry because there is nothing to register. Protection is territorial, so the answer differs country by country. The floor is set by TRIPS, which obligates WTO members to protect undisclosed information; above that, regimes diverge, with the EU's Trade Secrets Directive, the US Defend Trade Secrets Act and state law, and jurisdictions like China having strengthened protection in recent years. What counts as "reasonable measures," which remedies are available, and how fast you can move all vary. We run one coherent protection-and-enforcement strategy from a single point of accountability and pull in vetted local counsel only where a specific jurisdiction requires it.

Yes. And doing it without leaking the asset is the hard part we're built for. We structure staged disclosure behind escalating confidentiality protections so a counterparty can evaluate what you have without receiving it prematurely; identify and profile licensees, buyers, and lenders; and build defensible valuations for assets whose worth depends on their secrecy. It is a uniquely difficult exercise we handle with comparable transactions and licensing benchmarks.