This type of legal agreement can be used to protect ordinary confidential information or a trade secret. A non-compete clause is a contract that prevents the other party from competing with you later for a specified period of time and in a given geographical location. WIPO Lex provides easy access to trade secret legislation from a large number of countries and regions. Companies like Coca-Cola and KFC are working hard to protect their secrets. In situations where a trade secret does have a limited “retention period”, it may be useful for the owner to agree to a reasonable period of time in an NDA for the protection of such information. But if the incentive to limit a time limit in the NDA is something else – industry standards, market pressure or convenience – it is up to the owner to decide whether the profit to be made by the NDA outweighs the potential loss of trade secret protection after the NDA expires. As a general rule, any confidential business information that confers a competitive advantage on one company and is not known to others may be protected as a trade secret. Trade secrets include both technical information such as information about manufacturing processes, experimental research data, software algorithms, and business information such as distribution methods, list of suppliers and customers, as well as advertising strategies. The company that holds the trade secret has the responsibility to do everything in its power to keep it confidential. Employees may be required to sign commercial confidentiality agreements.
In particular, when contractors or employees leave, it is important to ensure that they are not in competition with the company after they leave, in addition to signing a confidentiality agreement. . . .