Trade Secrets

Davidson & Davidson - Illinois Trade Secret Practitioners

In our experience, trade secret concerns break down into two separate categories. We counsel clients with both types of concerns.

First, there are the concerns of a trade secret owner, who wishes to protect his trade secrets. At Davidson & Davidson, we work with trade secret owners to do a number of things. First, we help them identify their trade secrets. Next, we assist them in creating and maintaining policies and procedures to protect those trade secrets. We help clients develop such policies and procedures for determining what information should be kept secret and how secrecy will be maintained. Our experience includes developing and negotiating confidentiality agreements for use with employees, partners, suppliers and customers.

The second type of trade secret concerns are those of someone creating new products or services, who needs to avoid misappropriating another's secrets. We can advise clients on avoiding the trade secrets rights of others when developing new products or when hiring employees who have worked for competitors. We help such clients put into place practices designed to minimize the risk of trade secret claims being asserted against them, and to maximize their abilities to defend against such claims.

In Illinois, trade secret law is codified in the Illinois Trade Secrets Act, 765 ILCS 1065/1 - 9, which defines a trade secret as information "which is sufficiently secret to derive economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use" and which is "the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy or confidentiality." The Illinois Trade Secrets Act provides remedies including injunctions and money damages for trade secret misappropriation.

For more information, feel free to read our Trade Secret FAQs.

Please contact Davidson & Davidson directly to discuss any specific trade secrets-related legal matters with which you may need assistance, including any that may not be shown above.