Confidential information and intellectual property

Confidential information

The law of confidentiality is often the best way of protecting valuable proprietary information such as trade secrets and know-how where these are not otherwise adequately protected by other means (eg via intellectual property rights), or where using other types of protection is unattractive for commercial reasons.

Even if other types of rights exist (eg patent rights in the case of patented inventions), often the real value of an invention or new piece of technology does not lie just in the invention itself, but also in the associated know-how, training and guidance required to fully exploit it. Therefore, the law of confidentiality also helps to protect valuable information associated with (for instance) an invention, along with financial, customer and similar confidential information that a business holds.

Examples

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