Protecting Your Valuable Trade Secrets, Proprietary, and Confidential Information
Businesses are confronted with a never-ending litany of challenges. While it may be increasingly difficult to know where to begin in prioritizing these challenges, companies must undertake threat assessments and prioritize the impact of any potential, realistic threat. Once the threat is identified, the enterprise must evaluate appropriate and reasonable measures to minimize the detrimental impact should the threat materialize. Such prudence is an obligation each organization owes to its stakeholders. This article explores one potential threat to virtually every organization and the significant return on investment in strategically and cost effectively protecting some of the most valuable assets of any enterprise that are exposed to misuse and theft: trade secrets, proprietary information, and confidential information.
Intellectual property is critical to the vitality of today’s economy and the competitive advantage of an enterprise. Intellectual property, in all its forms, is an engine of growth, accounting for an increasing share of jobs and trade. Intellectual property in selected core industries has, in the past, been estimated to account for at least 6% of the gross domestic product of the United States. In recent years, the overall value of the “intellectual capital” of U.S. businesses – including copyrights, trademarks, patents, and trade secrets – was estimated to account for one third of the value of U.S. companies, or about $5 trillion.
