Confidential Infomation

Any information owned by a person, protected as confidential or secret, may be termed as confidential information. In other words confidential information is a nature of information, which is not to be known to people. It is something, which is kept as a secret. A considerable amount of commercial competitiveness of an enterprise depends on the information developed and accumulated by that enterprise or individual.

For example, the customer and potentially customer’s list could give a company a competitive edge over its competitor.

Such information may also include commercial or technical valuable information. The protection and management of such confidential information is intended to protect

• Information, which is created by the company
• Information, which is disclosed to the company.

Normally, when any information is being disclosed, an obligation of confidentiality can only be created where all parties are aware of the obligation and agree to the same. In all cases, disclosure of such information should be maintained and controlled by first executing a written Confidentiality or Non-Disclosure Agreement.

Patent protecting may not afford complete protection to the confidential information. In commercial field, competitive strength usually depends on innovative techniques and accompanying know-how. These techniques and know-how may not be protected by Patent protection due to following reasons:

• The Patents are granted only for technologies and not for innovative achievements concerning the conduct of business.
• In some cases, technical information, which provides valuable economic advantage for a trader, may not always be novel or an inventive step.