Your company has no doubt dedicated a good deal of resources to developing those practices and products that distinguish you from your competition in Fort Lauderdale. To have those leaked to competitors could be a potentially devastating blow to your business. Most of the corporate clients that we here at The Law Offices of Levi Williams, P.A. have worked with in the past have seen such leaks occur when former employers have left their organizations. You may have a non-disclosure agreement that prevents employees from sharing your trade secrets, yet have you truly aware of what qualifies as such? And if such secrets did get out, what can you do to stop their proliferation?
Florida’s Uniform Trade Secrets Act states that for information to qualify as a trade secret, it must meet three criteria:
- It must be determined to be a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique or process
- It must derive economic value from not being known by others who could profit off of its use
- The means undertaken to maintain its secrecy must be reasonable
Your non-disclosure agreement may allow you to go after a former employee who divulged your trade secrets, yet what preventing their unauthorized use? The law does allow you to seek injunctive relief to keep such information from being misappropriated until such time as it cease to exist or the commercial advantage it may have afforded your competitor has been eliminated. You may also seek an injunction against a competing company from using your trade without first paying a reasonable royalty fee to you. Discovery proceedings regarding trade secrets can be conducted discretely in order to avoid the further exposure of your business-critical information.
Discover more about what potential forms of legal recourse for your business by continuing to explore our site.
