Trade secrets are a fickle form of intellectual property. They can be
invaluable in protecting a company's assets, and potentially can last
forever. Coca-Cola famously has maintained its formula as a trade secret
for well over a century. On the other hand, trade secret rights can be
easily lost. Unlike a patent or copyright, there is no general right to
exclude third parties from using the trade secret. Instead, trade secret
law focuses on the means of obtaining access to the protected
information. To illustrate, a competitor who buys the trade secret
owner's product off the shelf and reverse engineers it can use whatever
it learns in its business, even in competing with the trade secret
owner.
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