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No, patents cover someone even independently coming up with the same idea and making a copy. Trade secrets don't have that protection. You can still steal trade

• vlovich123 6y ago
  The problem is that it would break all employment as we know it. Now all I have to do is get hired on AdWords, steal the algorithm, & start a startup to undercut Google. I can price at a loss because I'm a small fish. Google can't because they've got monopoly concerns. Even outside of that extreme example, this would come up regularly for any pure technology startup looking to exit with an acquisition. That's not to say it's not necessarily a better system (no trade secrets - all innovation is public) but the monetization strategy to reward novel innovation is much less clear (you can only get so far on support contracts).
  • hannasanarion 6y ago
    That's what NDAs are for. Coke was able to protect their secret formula with NDAs and access restriction for over 100 years without any legal protection whatsoever. That's the gamble of trade secrets: no legal protection, but you can keep your monopoly as long as you can keep the secret. If you want the government to defend your monopoly, you have to file a public patent as a price of entry. The Industrial Espionage Act of 1996 upended that balance by legally protecting trade secrets. Now you can have a government-protected monopoly for all eternity, all you have to do is stick a "secret" label on your invention. Patents are entirely redundant in this new world of trade secret protection.