Who this is for
You have know-how that gives you an edge and would hurt if it walked out the door: a manufacturing process, a formula, a pricing playbook, supplier terms, a dataset, or the internal tooling behind your product. Federal law (the Defend Trade Secrets Act) and Oregon's Uniform Trade Secrets Act protect information that is valuable because it is secret and that you take reasonable measures to protect. The catch is the second half: courts look hard at what you actually did to keep it secret, and companies routinely lose cases because the answer was "not much."
Trade secret services
Trade Secret Audit
We identify what actually qualifies as a trade secret in your business, who can reach it, and where it leaks, then produce a prioritized fix list. Most businesses are surprised by both lists.
NDAs and Agreements
Nondisclosure agreements that fit the actual relationship (vendors, manufacturing partners, investors, contractors), plus employee confidentiality and IP assignment agreements.
Policies and Reasonable Measures
Access controls, onboarding and exit procedures, labeling practices, and written policies that make your protection provable. This includes employee AI use: staff pasting confidential information into public chatbots is now one of the most common leak paths, which is why this work pairs naturally with AI governance.
Departures and Suspected Misappropriation
When a key employee leaves for a competitor or you suspect your information walked out the door, I counsel on the initial response: preserving evidence, exit communications, and demand letters.
An honest scope note: I do not litigate trade secret cases. If a dispute heads to court, I connect you with experienced litigation counsel and can stay involved on strategy. The best outcomes, though, come from the protection work done before anyone needs a courtroom.
What it costs
Like everything else in this practice, you get scope and fee in writing before work begins.
Patent or trade secret? The fork that matters
Patents and trade secrets are opposites: a patent trades disclosure for a 20-year exclusive right, while a trade secret can last forever but dies the moment the information becomes public or is independently discovered. The practical questions: Can competitors reverse-engineer it from the product? Then secrecy will not hold and a patent may be better. Is it invisible internal know-how? Secrecy is often stronger and cheaper. Many businesses need both, for different pieces. This decision is a core part of my patent counseling, and the protection guide walks through it.
Common questions
What actually qualifies as a trade secret?
Information that has economic value because it is not generally known, and that you take reasonable measures to keep secret. Both parts are required. A customer list can qualify; a customer list everyone in the company can export to a personal laptop probably will not.
Is an NDA enough?
An NDA is one reasonable measure, not a complete program. Courts look at the whole picture: access limits, labeling, exit procedures, technical controls. A great NDA with no other measures is a thin story in court.
An employee just left for a competitor. What do I do first?
Act quickly and calmly: preserve devices and logs before they are wiped, review what the person accessed in their final weeks, check their agreements, and get advice before sending anything aggressive. Early missteps are hard to undo.
What about employees using ChatGPT and other AI tools?
Pasting confidential information into a public AI tool can be a disclosure that undermines trade secret status, and it happens constantly without policies and training. An AI use policy is now a core reasonable measure; see the AI governance page.
Do you handle trade secret lawsuits?
No. Litigation is referred to experienced trial counsel, and I can stay involved on strategy. My work is the protection, response, and counseling that ideally keeps you out of court, or leaves you holding strong evidence if you end up there.
Keep learning
Related reading: NDAs vs. patents and patent, publish, or keep it secret. Or compare every protection type in the guide.