Why Your Tech Company Needs a Trade Secrets Audit

The biggest asset of your tech company is the ideas behind every invention that you have presented to the market. It is very important that you protect those ideas because the continued success of your company depends on the competitive edge that those ideas give you. This article discusses some reasons why you may need to conduct a trade secrets audit so that you can proactively protect your intellectual assets.

It Gives You a Clear Idea of What Needs to Be Protected

A trade secrets audit starts by identifying everything that needs to be patented or protected in any other way. This exercise can open your mind to aspects of your business that you had not paid attention to. For instance, you may have previously focused upon protecting your rights to the home food-delivery app that your company developed. The audit may draw your attention to the fact that your logo also needs to be protected from copyright infringement. Such awareness will enable you to take steps to protect the additional intellectual assets that you had not patented.

It Evaluates Your Current Protection Mechanisms

The trade secrets audit also takes a keen look at your current mechanisms of preventing your trade secrets from being used by unauthorised people. For instance, the people conducting the audit can examine the effectiveness of the confidentiality agreements that you sign with your employees. In this way, points of weakness will be pointed out before they are exploited to steal your company's trade secrets.

It Suggests Corrective Measures

Another important benefit of conducting a trade secrets audit is that you will receive recommendations on how to respond in case a trade secret is stolen or misused. The audit will also help you to strengthen your protection mechanisms so that any infringement can be swiftly dealt with. For instance, the auditors may advise you to write additional codes into the app so that a client cannot share his or her installation file with someone who has not paid for the app. Such remedial actions can result in more sales since unauthorised users will be prevented from accessing the app.

A comprehensive trade secrets audit requires expertise from different fields such as data privacy law and intellectual property litigation. Hire a patent attorney to conduct this audit and design legal documents that will protect your trade secrets so that other people do not illegally benefit from the fruits of your efforts.


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