CMS PROTECT

We prepare your company for the new trade secrets protection requirements

To achieve an adequate level of protection, companies should

  • review their existing confidentiality safeguards,
  • identify risk situations within the company and
  • develop and implement a comprehensive protection strategy.

But what does such a strategy look like? How do you implement it within the organisation? And how do you manage to meet the new requirements without tying up too many internal resources?

Three-stage plan for protecting secrets – how CMS PROTECT works

Our CMS PROTECT tool consists of three modules. We work closely with you on the legal, organisational and technical level 

  • to identify existing risk situations in relation to your trade secrets and define any urgent need for action (Module 1),
  • to develop the appropriate protection strategy for your company and implement it within your organisation (Module 2) and
  • to maintain the protection strategy’s effectiveness through periodic reviews and updating (Module 3).

Module 1: Audit

Firstly, we use CMS PROTECT to jointly identify the risks in relation to your trade secrets and any existing gaps in protection. To do this, we carry out a comprehensive review based on a questionnaire tailored to your company’s specific circumstances. We also look at examples of existing contracts and model contracts to obtain an overview of your company’s legal situation. Working closely with you, we develop confidentiality categories for your trade secrets and classify them accordingly in CMS PROTECT, e.g. based on strategic importance and risk level. The Red Flag Report that is the main deliverable of Module 1 documents the outcome of our review in a concise and easy-to-understand manner.

Module 2: Protection strategy

In Module 2, we use the output of Module 1 to develop a comprehensive strategy for protecting your trade secrets and to suggest specific confidentiality measures at the legal, organisational and technical level. Importantly, the protection strategy is tailored to your company’s needs and specific requirements, reliably minimising the individual risk situations. Naturally, we also support you during subsequent implementation of the protection strategy within your organisation.

Module 3: Check-up

Requirements around the protection of secrets will continue to change in the future, due to factors such as emerging case law or new IT security standards. Here again, CMS PROTECT provides the necessary support. In Module 3, we periodically review and update the protection strategy as required. Our joint efforts through CMS PROTECT ensure that you are ideally positioned to protect your trade secrets going forward. As part of Module 3, we also offer you and your employees training courses on protecting secrets and provide support for special situations, such as exit discussions.

The structured approach behind CMS PROTECT allows you to keep track of implementation status and costs at all times. You also receive comprehensive documentation on the measures taken in the context of CMS PROTECT, thereby enabling you to meet your obligation to provide evidence in court in the event of an infringement. Your company is thus ideally equipped if the need arises.


If you would like to find out more about CMS PROTECT or if you have any questions, please write to us at cms-protect@cms-hs.com. Alternatively, contact one of the CMS PROTECT specialists listed alongside.

Want to check out in advance how well your know-how is protected? Then take our online stress test and review your know-how protection here!

cms-protect@cms-hs.com