TRADE SECRET LITIGATION AND ENFORCEMENT
CD: Could you outline why trade secrets are strategically important to both small and medium-sized enterprises and large corporations across different sectors? What role do they play in driving innovation and economic value?
De Vrey: Trade secrets play a very important role in driving innovation because they can protect any kind of innovative process, know-how, product, strategy, information, technology or other asset that creates competitive value for a company. In this digital era this is even more the case considering that competitive assets include data, algorithms and other innovations and information that may not be eligible for intellectual property (IP) protection. Trade secrets are therefore a foundational asset for companies of all sizes because they protect high value know-how without the disclosure, cost and rigidity of registered rights. For large corporates, they preserve scalable advantages, such as research and development pipelines, data models, supply chain optimisations and deal strategies, across jurisdictions and product lines. For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), they safeguard process improvements, pricing algorithms, customer insights and manufacturing refinements that confer market differentiation and can be defended swiftly and proportionately.
Sikellis: Trade secrets are strategically vital for organisations of all sizes and across sectors because they offer the competitive advantages of cost-effective protection and flexibility in safeguarding innovation. For SMEs that often rely on speed to market, trade secrets allow them to protect innovation without the delays and expenses associated with patent approval. Trade secrets also offer a broader scope of protection, covering non-patentable knowledge, like protecting specialised processes, formulations, quality control methods, customer lists and supplier relationships, which are important and valuable for companies of all sizes. Trade secrets also provide additional flexibility in IP strategy, as companies can choose to keep certain innovations secret while patenting others, maximising protection. Trade secrets are strategically critical to large pharmaceutical companies, due to the unique nature of the industry, where innovation, regulatory complexity and competitive advantage are tightly interwoven.
Jan-Mar 2026 issue
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Novartis