The most common kinds of trade secrets include chemical formulas or recipes and manufacturing processes or techniques. Trade secrets are potentially unlimited in duration. The protection provided by a trade secret is lost only if someone else discovers the information either independently or by analyzing or dissecting a product through reverse engineering.
Trade secrets do not need to be registered with or granted by any government agencies. If you want to keep something as a trade secret, just take reasonable steps to keep your secret, well, secret.
Bright Ideas
At age 83, Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals because he hated wearing two pairs of glasses.