Sure you can, but simply classifying product development information as a trade secret is not enough. Furthermore, information known to the public or information that can be easily gathered from reading trade publications, scientific journals, and so forth is not considered a trade secret.

The biggest problem you have is how to keep your trade secrets under wraps. The most frequent disclosure of trade secret information is by current and former employees.

On May 23, 2001, The Los Angeles Times reported that software company Avant Corporation agreed to pay $27 million in fines, with the possibility of more to come, after its CEO and six other current and former executives pleaded no lo contendere to criminal charges in the theft of computer code from a competitor where Avant’s founders had worked.

At the annual conference of the Risk & Insurance Management Society on May 14, 2001, Bradford C. Lewis of Fenwick & West, LLP, told a panel in reference to trade secrets: “It’s a much more informal process, but you do have to take specific steps within your organization in order to qualify for trade secrecy protection.”

You can lose the rights to trade secret protection when you are pitching a product concept and you share trade secrets as part of your sale’s strategy. If you have not taken careful and deliberate steps to protect the trade secret, you may have compromised your secret. In this case, you’d want the potential licensee to sign a hold confidential document.

If the document you sign with the prospective licensee acknowledges your trade secret and promises (on behalf of the company and its employees) to hold your information confidential, then the use or sharing of same could be interpreted as willful and malicious misappropriation.