Trade Secrets - Brazil

A business secret is confidential knowledge or information that is capable of giving its holders a competitive advantage in the market.Protection of trade secrets in Brazil has historically not been associated with the notion of property since, technically speaking, unpatented information and know-how did not fit the statutory definition of property in Brazil. Protection of trade secrets flowed rather from two other categories of rights: the constitutional right to preserve the privacy of information, which is a personal right of any individual domiciled in Brazil (Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988, Section 5, Subsection X); and the statutory right to require fair competition, which is also a personal right of any trader, industrialist, or supplier of services