• PRO
  • Events
  • About Blog Store Popular
  • Login
  • Register
  • PRO
  • Resources
    • Latest updates
    • Q&A
    • In-depth
    • In-house view
    • Practical resources
  • Resources
  • Research
    • Legal research hub
    • Primary Sources
    • Research reports
    • Explore all
  • Research
  • Learn
    • All
    • Webinars
    • Videos
  • Learn
  • Experts
    • Find experts
    • Influencers
    • Firms
    • About
    Introducing Instruct Counsel
    The next generation search tool for finding the right lawyer for you.
  • Experts
  • My newsfeed
  • Events
  • About
  • Blog
  • Store
  • Popular
  • Legal research hub
  • Primary Sources
  • Research reports
  • Explore all
  • Find experts
  • Influencers
  • Firms
  • About
Introducing Instruct Counsel
The next generation search tool for finding the right lawyer for you.
  • Compare
  • Topics
  • Interviews
  • Guides

ANALYTICS

Review your content's performance and reach.

  • Analytics dashboard
  • Top articles
  • Top authors
  • Who's reading?

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT

Become your target audience’s go-to resource for today’s hottest topics.

  • Trending Topics
  • Discover Content
  • Horizons
  • Ideation

CLIENT INTELLIGENCE

Understand your clients’ strategies and the most pressing issues they are facing.

  • Track Sectors
  • Track Clients
  • Mandates
  • Discover Companies
  • Reports Centre

COMPETITOR INTELLIGENCE

Keep a step ahead of your key competitors and benchmark against them.

  • Benchmarking
  • Competitor Mandates
Back Forward
  • Save & file
  • View original
  • Forward
  • Share
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Linked In
  • Follow
    Please login to follow content.
  • Like
  • Instruct

add to folder:

  • My saved (default)
  • Read later
Folders shared with you

Register now for your free, tailored, daily legal newsfeed service.

Questions? Please contact [email protected]

Register

Trade Secrets: protecting the future prosperity of your business

Bird & Bird LLP

To view this article you need a PDF viewer such as Adobe Reader. Download Adobe Acrobat Reader

If you can't read this PDF, you can view its text here. Go back to the PDF .

USA February 20 2019

As one of the world's leading technology focused law firms, we can help you protect your valuable business information and assist you in safeguarding against internal and external threats at both the local and international level.

Keep it secret, keep it safe

Processes, pricing, commercial & technical know-how...

...there's a lot of information that makes up your business. Some of it is required by law, some of it is industry standard. However, some of it can be crucial to giving you a competitive edge and misuse of such information can cause significant damage to the success of your organisation.

We call these your Trade Secrets and we think they're worth protecting.

An Increased threat

The need to be able to identify, locate and monitor business critical information has never been greater. Especially in today's digital world, where data increases on a daily basis and can be disseminated to hundreds of thousands of people all over the world instantaneously.

As one of only a handful of firms to offer a specialist Trade Secrets service, our team is a rare breed. Unlike many of our competitors, we take a highly integrated approach to trade secrets issues, combining skills and expertise from a range of our leading practice specialisms, to provide you with a tailor-made, cohesive team, built to face the challenges presented by each assignment.

Dispute Resolution

Commercial

Data Protection

Employment

Cyber Security

Intellectual Property

Trade Secrets

Regulatory Compliance

and Investigations

Our multi-faceted team approach means we are able to work with you to identify your Trade Secrets and what the threats to them might be. Many of our experts have scientific or engineering qualifications which give them an unrivalled ability to understand the innovations you need to protect. Where the scope of your project extends beyond legal expertise, our consultancy arm Baseline provides complementary support on the process improvement, organisational design and IT components that an effective trade secrets management framework requires.

Keep it secret, keep it safe & 01

Facing the Threat

The threat from within

Whilst threats to the security of your Trade Secrets exist from external sources (cybersecurity, hacking, theft etc.), most frequently, the highest risk comes from within your organisation, typically involving current or former employees, contractors, or business partners who have had authorised access.

Building a culture of protection

It is often assumed that threats to Trade Secrets, whether internal or external, take shape for nefarious reasons and personal gain. Whilst that may indeed be the case, threats to their security can present themselves merely through negligence and unintentional action or inaction (lack of training, poor systems, lack of knowledge etc). That's why we believe that in addition to ensuring you have adequate technological systems and IT protection in place, a people-based approach and building a culture of protection should be at the heart of your strategy.

Employees, contractors and

consultants Potential leaks of sensitive

information during employment/engagement. Risks of competition and

unlawful use of confidential information

after termination of employment/engagement.

Clients, providers and business partners Access to confidential

information and knowhow.

Use and sharing by clients and third parties of

knowledge acquired in the context of the commercial

relationship.

Websites and Social media, promotional

and marketing materials

Potential disclosure of confidential information and know-how to a wider

public. Reputational damage.

Intellectual Capital Potential vulnerabilities in

the protection of your organisation's intellectual

property. Underutilisation and exploitation of your organisation's Trade

Secrets.

02 & Facing the Threat

We're with you all the way

We're serious about future-proofing your business and protecting your data assets.

We encounter and advise on the many aspects of trade secrets protection and enforcement on a daily basis, from how to deal with the threats posed by insiders to handling the reputation management fall-out associated with a cyber breach.

Review & Assess

We will work with you to identify your valuable information that needs protection and audit your existing policies, procedures & documentation. We can then assess how and where improvements can be made, and

identify the key areas for action.

Improve & Protect

We will formulate the appropriate internal policies, documents and training required to protect your assets, tailored to your needs. We will also offer best practice advice to mitigate the risk of threats, whether from

specific circumstances or as part of a more routine compliance project.

Manage & Monitor

We can carry out periodic health-checks of your policies and procedures and ensure that they are kept up to date, and in line with relevant legal and regulatory changes. We can also advise you on the impact of new technologies and working methods and how to modify your approach in the light of them.

Respond & Defend

When a problem does occur, we will enforce or defend your rights decisively with effective strategies to limit or control any potential damage and/or continued threat. We can also guide you through the issues involved

in forensic & regulatory investigations, surveillance and the tactics and realities of Court action.

We're with you all the way & 03

Thinking differently to future-proof your business

Helping your business develop an effective trade secrets management framework

When it comes to managing and protecting your trade secrets, we recognise that legal expertise is only part of the solution. Designing and implementing an effective framework of protection requires a holistic approach and thinking that extends beyond the legal issues and risks.

Our answer to this is Baseline, our joint venture consulting arm which brings together Bird & Bird legal advice with management consultancy techniques and methodologies.

It's a solution designed to support you with critical business and compliance issues such as trade secrets protection, and to future-proof your organisation against the changing regulatory and competitive landscape.

A phased, collaborative approach

To assess your trade secrets strategy and define a management framework that works for your business, our integrated team would follow a fourphased approach.

As well as the legal aspects of trade secrets protection and enforcement, each phase addresses the process improvement, organisational design and IT requirements for achieving an effective and sustainable solution.

It's an approach in which we focus on employee engagement and co-designing solutions that reflect the assets and processes unique to your business.

Review &

Assess

Understand the "as is" situation, and identify and measure immediate risks

Improve &

Protect

Develop and implement new processes, procedures,

information flows and IT standards

Manage &

Monitor

Design monitoring process, including crisis management roles

and responsibilities

Respond &

Defend

Support policy breach reaction plan and crisis management task

force

Your road map to trade secrets compliance

A fit-for-purpose framework

The outcome is an effective management framework, which reflects not only your specific business environment and trade secrets strategy but the range of people, process, structure, technology and systems and governance/performance variables that need to be addressed.

This proprietary framework and uniquely integrated approach mean we think differently about the complex challenges associated with trade secrets protection, and can provide a complete solution to help protect the future prosperity of your business.

04 & Thinking differently to future-proof your business

20

Practices & sectors at Bird & Bird

382m

Firmwide revenue exceeded 380m for the first time in 2017/18

We have over 1350 lawyers internationally and a total headcount

of almost 2700 internationally

The firm has now seen nearly 30 years of continuous, unbroken

growth

We have 29 offices in 20 countries

Organised around key sectors since 1998, longer than almost all other law firms

Thinking differently to future-proof your business & 05

Contacts

Tom Vapaavuori

Partner, Finland Tel: +35896226670 [email protected]

Pattie Walsh

Partner, Hong Kong Tel: +85222486088 [email protected]

Lynne Lewis

Partner, Australia Tel: +61292269873 [email protected]

Sophie Eyre

Partner, United Kingdom Tel: +442074156642 [email protected]

Robert Williams

Partner, United Kingdom Tel: +442074156089 [email protected]

Graldine Arbant

Partner, France Tel: +33619201098 [email protected]

Miguel Pastur

Partner, Spain Tel: +34917903206 [email protected]

twobirds.com

Abu Dhabi & Amsterdam & Beijing & Bratislava & Brussels & Budapest & Copenhagen & Dubai & Dusseldorf & Frankfurt & The Hague & Hamburg & Helsinki & Hong Kong & London & Luxembourg & Lyon & Madrid & Milan & Munich & Paris & Prague & Rome & San Francisco & Shanghai & Singapore & Stockholm & Sydney & Warsaw

Bird & Bird is an international legal practice comprising Bird & Bird LLP and its affiliated and associated businesses. Bird & Bird LLP is a limited liability partnership, registered in England and Wales with registered number OC340318 and is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Its registered office and principal place of business is at 12 New Fetter Lane, London EC4A 1JP. A list of members of Bird & Bird LLP and of any non-members who are designated as partners, and of their respective professional qualifications, is open to inspection at that address.

Matters\45632033.1

Bird & Bird LLP - Tom Vapaavuori, Robert Williams, Pattie Walsh, Géraldine Arbant, Lynne Lewis, Miguel Pastur and Sophie Eyre
Back Forward
  • Save & file
  • View original
  • Forward
  • Share
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Linked In
  • Follow
    Please login to follow content.
  • Like
  • Instruct

add to folder:

  • My saved (default)
  • Read later
Folders shared with you

Filed under

  • USA
  • Designs and trade secrets
  • IT & Data Protection
  • Bird & Bird LLP

Tagged with

  • Confidentiality
  • Dispute resolution

Popular articles from this firm

  1. Music and Social Media - Times are changing for brands on TikTok *
  2. ICO: Legal Classification of Tokens: Utility Token *
  3. Netflix: Coming Up Next… Emerging competitors and legal implications of the changing TV and film industry *
  4. COVID-19 & the air transport and aerospace supply chain: a ten step guide *
  5. Male, Female, or Divers? The introduction of the third sex and its potential impact on employment law *

If you would like to learn how Lexology can drive your content marketing strategy forward, please email [email protected].

Powered by Lexology
loading...

Related research hubs

  • USA
  • IT & Data Protection
  • Designs and trade secrets
Dominic Cottam
Senior Counsel
BOC Limited
What our clients say

"As a busy in-house practitioner, I rarely have the time to attend formal seminars and conferences. Consequently, I find the news releases put out by the various law firms invaluable in keeping me up to date on developments in the law and recent case law. The service that Lexology provides, through consolidating those various news releases and grouping them under the relevant categories, is a timesaver for me and allows me to do a quick daily scan of recent developments."

Back to Top
Resources
  • Daily newsfeed
  • Q&A
  • Research hubs
  • Learn
  • In-depth
Experts
  • Find experts
  • Legal Influencers
  • Firms
  • About Instruct Counsel
More
  • About us
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Store
  • Popular
Legal
  • Terms of use
  • Cookies
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy policy
  • GDPR compliance
Contact
  • Contact
  • RSS feeds
  • Submissions
 
  • Login
  • Register
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Follow on LinkedIn

© Copyright 2006 - 2021 Law Business Research

Law Business Research