It's trade secrets that enforce celibacy. Do trade secrets still exist?* Staff turnover and international travel are such in the modern world is such that idea

It's trade secrets that enforce celibacy. Do trade secrets still exist?* Staff turnover and international travel are such in the modern world is such that ideas get out. Even obviously meant-to-be-secret stuff like codes needed to decrypt DVDs or SMB/CIFS message get out. Lots of things that do get patented could easily be reverse-engineered were they not published. You don't have to be able to use an invention commercially to learn from it, combine it with other ideas, improve on it, invent around it. Do companies ask talented engineers to spend time discussing rivals' patents and applications to pick out worthwhile stuff? Does anyone know of any examples of innovation that has come from the study of patent documents? * I thought of a candidate. I was once told that there was insider knowledge involved in the production of the glass that goes into true glass eyes, held by a community of glassblowers in a town in eastern germany, and that this is key to being able to get the glass dynamic enough to do things like make the veins look right.