Confidential information

The law of confidentiality is often the best way of protecting trade secrets and valuable 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 of items which might be considered confidential within a business include:

1. •

   commercial records such as price lists, customer lists, details of customers, suppliers, business partners and relationships with regulators or other third parties

2. •

   unpublished copyright works

3. •

   mathematical formulae and manufacturing techniques, processes, designs, drawings and engineering

4. •

   secure codes and algorithms

5. •

   personal employee information such as compensation arrangements, benefits, hours or work etc