How does a court determine that something is actually a trade secret?
Just because a
competitor says that its information is a trade secret doesn't
necessarily make it so. In determining whether a trade secret exists,
courts generally weigh the following factors:
- the extent to which the information is known outside the claimant's business;
- the extent to which it is known by employees and others involved in the claimant's business;
- the extent of measures taken by the claimant to guard the secrecy of the information;
- the value of the information;
- the amount of effort or money expended by the claimant in developing the information; and
- the ease or difficulty with which the information could be properly acquired or duplicated by others.