The standardisation of trade secret protection was one of the goals of the TRIPs Agreement of 1998. Nevertheless, substantial differences in this protection remain across jurisdictions. When defining the optimal scope of trade secrets law, lawmakers should be aware that strong trade secret...

We survey the economic literature, both theoretical and empirical, on the choice of intellectual property protection by firms. Our focus is on the tradeoffs between using patents and disclosing versus the use of secrecy, although we also look briefly at the use of other means of formal...

The skills and innovations of indigenous and local communities - their so-called “traditional knowledge” - go largely unrecognized by intellectual property law. Meanwhile, patent and copyright laws reward the innovative and creative contributions of individuals and firms that freely use...

This note seeks to understand the tension between trade secrecy law and patent law pointed out by Judge Hand. Further, this Note argues that the recently enacted America Invents Act (“AIA”) overrules the holding from Metallizing Engineering that secret prior commercial use by an inventor...

The development of laws concerning the protection of trade secrets in China is a reflection of the ongoing needs and demands of the great changes in the Chinese economy. This paper offers a historical overview of the development of trade secret protection laws in China and examines how the...

‘Trade Secrets’ is that genre of information that is hard to define, classify and ascertain. Motivated by various aspects that it entails, researchers across the globe have attempted to highlight various aspects of trade secrets and to determine essential factors that lie beneath. There has...

Patent and trade secret law can be viewed as alternative bodies of law for protecting certain types of inventions. Consequently, an inventor will often have to make a choice or election between the type of protection to rely on. This election must be based on considering both the legal...