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If it’s patented it cannot be a trade secret. And vice versa. Trade secrets are defined by not having been shared yet, patents are defined by having been publis

If it’s patented it cannot be a trade secret. And vice versa. Trade secrets are defined by not having been shared yet, patents are defined by having been published publicly. Patents give you a temporary monopoly in exchange for contributing to public knowledge what might otherwise remain a trade secret.

jackvalentine 4y ago
What is the downside to keeping things as a trade secret? Someone else might independently ‘invent’ the same thing and you’re SOL?
- tiahura 4y ago
  Exactly
- syrrim 4y ago
  More likely they would reverse engineer your product and recreate it. This is more likely for products sold than for internal processes.
  - cormacrelf 4y ago
    There are other ways you can fail to bolt the lid down well enough and the actual secret leaks. You can make all your employees sign NDAs but they still know the secrets. Those employees go and get jobs elsewhere. You can extract some punishment on them for leaking and breaking the NDA (contract law), but once the cat's out of the bag, it's out. If you accidentally leave a laptop on a train, you're done. If a corporate spy targets you successfully, you're done. You can't have copyright on ideas, so if your trade secret is in essence an idea, then people can go and copy the idea. For a secret that can't easily be reverse-engineered, that means the biggest difference between patents and trade secrets is how long you expect to have a monopoly for. For patents, if you are granted one, then you get a monopoly for exactly 20 years, which for almost any idea is enough time to make a lot of money if it's a good idea or at least get enough of a head start. But once 20 years are up, that idea has been in the open for 20 years already. For trade secrets, the number of years depends on you. Some companies can make it for more than 20 years. Employee retention helps. Spending lots of money on information security helps. Not letting Chinese companies through the door who pretend to want to buy yours, do some due diligence and then back out once they figure out a few of your trade secrets, also helps.
zinekeller 4y ago
You can selectively have patents for the tier-2 designs and use trade secrets for the tier-1 designs that you wouldn't really want to diverge to the world. It's not mutually exclusive like you're implying here (okay, in the strictest sense a certain part of the invention can only be either be patented or kept secret, but the totality of the device makes it likely that both patented and non-patented trade secrets were used).
- cormacrelf 4y ago
  Close, but I didn’t say a device has to be either patented or not, only an idea. Again, there is absolutely no such thing as a “patented trade secret”. Just call it an idea.

jackvalentine 4y ago

What is the downside to keeping things as a trade secret? Someone else might independently ‘invent’ the same thing and you’re SOL?

tiahura 4y ago
Exactly
syrrim 4y ago
More likely they would reverse engineer your product and recreate it. This is more likely for products sold than for internal processes.
- cormacrelf 4y ago
  There are other ways you can fail to bolt the lid down well enough and the actual secret leaks. You can make all your employees sign NDAs but they still know the secrets. Those employees go and get jobs elsewhere. You can extract some punishment on them for leaking and breaking the NDA (contract law), but once the cat's out of the bag, it's out. If you accidentally leave a laptop on a train, you're done. If a corporate spy targets you successfully, you're done. You can't have copyright on ideas, so if your trade secret is in essence an idea, then people can go and copy the idea. For a secret that can't easily be reverse-engineered, that means the biggest difference between patents and trade secrets is how long you expect to have a monopoly for. For patents, if you are granted one, then you get a monopoly for exactly 20 years, which for almost any idea is enough time to make a lot of money if it's a good idea or at least get enough of a head start. But once 20 years are up, that idea has been in the open for 20 years already. For trade secrets, the number of years depends on you. Some companies can make it for more than 20 years. Employee retention helps. Spending lots of money on information security helps. Not letting Chinese companies through the door who pretend to want to buy yours, do some due diligence and then back out once they figure out a few of your trade secrets, also helps.

zinekeller 4y ago

You can selectively have patents for the tier-2 designs and use trade secrets for the tier-1 designs that you wouldn't really want to diverge to the world. It's not mutually exclusive like you're implying here (okay, in the strictest sense a certain part of the invention can only be either be patented or kept secret, but the totality of the device makes it likely that both patented and non-patented trade secrets were used).

cormacrelf 4y ago
Close, but I didn’t say a device has to be either patented or not, only an idea. Again, there is absolutely no such thing as a “patented trade secret”. Just call it an idea.