When you own a New Jersey business, a significant part of its value may lie in its trade secrets, or the confidential information it has that makes it unique. For many businesses, trade secrets play a pivotal role in their overall success. So, it is important that you, as a business owner, take certain steps to protect yours.
According to Reuters, many instances of leaked trade secrets occur when a company employee leaves one company and joins another. Unless you exercise proper care to prevent this from happening, your business’s intellectual property could be at risk when an employee leaves. To help protect your own business’s trade secrets, consider taking the following steps.
Rely on technological controls
A big part of protecting your business’s trade secrets involves using technological controls to restrict access to them. Consider implementing new technical measures to limit who has access to your business’s private information.
Use confidentiality agreements
Confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements also seek to protect your business against private information leaks. These agreements create legally binding contracts between the party who discloses the trade secret and the party they tell about it.
Conduct exit interviews
It may also help you guard your business’s trade secrets to conduct exit interviews with departing employees before they leave. When doing so, have the departing employee turn over all company files and keys. If he or she signed an employment, confidentiality or nondisclosure agreement, this is a good time to remind him or her about it.
By putting these measures in place, you should be able to reduce the likelihood of your business’s private information falling into the wrong hands and costing you a significant amount of money.