Trade secrets are alternatives to other forms of IP protection.
Schechter and Thomas 03 – Roger E. Schechter is a professor of law at George Washington University. John R. Thomas is a professor of law at Georgetown University.
Roger E. Schecter and John R. Thomas, “Introduction to Intellectual Property,” in Intellectual Property: The Law of Copyrights, Patents and Trademarks, West Group 2003, non-paginated epub.
The principal intellectual property alternative to patents is trade secret law. 20 Valuable information that is not publicly known and that is subject to measures to preserve its secrecy may be granted trade secret rights under state statutory or common law. Unlike patents, no formalities are required to maintain trade secret protection. Trade secret protection is more limited than that offered by the patent law, however. Trade secret law does not prevent reverse engineering or independent discovery of the protected information, for example, while patent rights would. Trade secret rights endure for as long as the protected information is not known to the public.