The law relating to trade secrets allows from now on the companies to secure their strategic information in a globalized and hyper-connected economy. However only those who will have set up capacities to protect the secret nature of this information will be in a position to have their rights successfully defended before the courts. As necessary resources and means dedicated to this protection are left to their free choice the challenge is to provide SMEs and mid-caps with relevant methods and good practices in order to support them in the implementation of this new set of rules.
This is the reason why the Paris Ile-de-France CCI has just issued a guide prepared in cooperation with Me Olivier de Maison-Rouge, in partnership with AFJE (French Association of Business Lawyers) and FIM (Federation of Mechanical Industries). The goal of this guide is to make businesses aware of the stakes of trade secrets protection such as answer their questions.
This handbook can be very simply used as it has been designed as a value chain made of 3 key steps which can be referred to according to the needs: - identification of confidential data - classification of this information - and protection management.
The description of various types of feedbacks such as the inclusion of a useful self-evaluation grid are further attractive features of this guide. It will thus be very helpful to companies as it enables them to check if the measures that they have implemented offer enough protection of their business secrets.