Intellectual Property

The pan­dem­ic that will define 2020 has put many types of in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­erty in the spot­light – par­tic­u­larly, of course, in life sci­ences. Who will de­vel­op an ef­fect­ive vac­cine or vac­cines for Cov­id-19...

Some leaks can’t be fixed “Con­fid­en­tial in­form­a­tion is like an ice cube... give it to the party who has no re­fri­ger­at­or or will not agree to keep it in one, and by the time of the tri­al you have just a pool of wa­ter.” This, from the so-called Spycatch­er case (1987), ap­plies well to cor­por­ate as­sets: fail to store them cor­rectly and all you might have left is an ex­pens­ive mess.The con­sequences of even a minor ex­pos­ure of a trade secret can be huge. As this re­port re­veals, the pro­tec­tion of trade secrets is rightly re­cog­nised by most seni­or ex­ec­ut­ives as a pri­or­ity is­sue. But the re­search also re­veals gaps that leave com­pan­ies un­ne­ces­sar­ily ex­posed to risks. The top named threats – cy­ber­se­cur­ity at­tacks and em­ploy­ee leaks – res­on­ate with what we see im­pact­ing our cli­ents. In­creased home and re­mote work­ing is strain­ing se­cur­ity meas­ures and em­ploy­ee loy­alty. Ad­ded to this, an ‘in­nov­ate or die’ at­ti­tude in highly-com­pet­it­ive sec­tors can mo­tiv­ate new join­ers to ar­rive with ques­tion­able ma­ter­i­al from their pre­vi­ous em­ploy­er, or worse: out­right theft between com­pet­it­ors. But while it is easy to fo­cus on the lurk­ing threats from weakened cy­ber se­cur­ity and dis­gruntled em­ploy­ees – and they are im­port­ant – there are more routine ac­tions a com­pany can take to safe­guard its secrets than just up­dat­ing its IT sys­tems or the em­ploy­ee hand­book. Com­monly, those who most need our help already have a trade secrets policy but have not prop­erly im­ple­men­ted it in re­la­tion to the secret in ques­tion. Or the policy has not been up­dated to re­flect the in­tan­gible as­sets the busi­ness now owns. Or pro­tec­tion was taken for gran­ted.With trade secrets – which for many busi­nesses are stra­tegic­ally more im­port­ant than a pub­lic pat­ent port­fo­lio – it is al­ways cost­li­er and messi­er to find solu­tions after a theft or a leak. Identi­fy­ing the trade secrets and the threats posed to them, com­bined with rig­or­ous in­tern­al pro­cesses and well-draf­ted con­tracts, can help pre­vent such prob­lems from hap­pen­ing. Harder, but just as ne­ces­sary, is en­ga­ging hearts and minds in cor­por­ate cul­ture, to know why trade secrets are im­port­ant, why we are all are re­spons­ible for pro­tect­ing them, and what may hap­pen if we do not (to both the com­pany and the in­di­vidu­al). In our ex­per­i­ence, the busi­nesses with the strongest de­fences have not only thought stra­tegic­ally about their in­tan­gible as­sets and how best to pro­tect them but are also pre­pared for the worst. The trick to avoid­ing an as­set be­com­ing a crisis is to be wise be­fore the event.Tom Scourfield, Co-Head, In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­erty Group, CMS