How non-disclosures can protect your business secrets

For many businesses, it is their trade secrets which provide them with an added edge over their rivals. Information, processes and plans can help them to gain an advantage and the unauthorised disclosure to third parties can be problematic and damaging. Here we will explain how Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA’s) can help in protecting these types of information from dissemination by third parties.

What are trade secrets?

From the complex algorithms that Google use to order search results to the secret ingredients used in Kentucky Fried Chicken, trade secrets give businesses an advantage that requires protection. Trade secrets could include specific methods of working or production, equipment that is used, ingredients, inventions, algorithms and formula as well as customer lists and other types of information. Trade secrets are defined under law as information that is “secret in the sense that it is not generally known among or readily accessible to persons within the circles that normally deal with this kind of information”, “has commercial value because it is secret” and “has been subject to reasonable steps under the circumstances, by the person lawfully in control of the information, to keep it a secret”.

What to do if your work is pirated online

For media industries – particularly the music and film industries – file sharing is a controversial topic with many split over the positive and negative impact of the phenomena.

Some creatives, such as the Cuban born musician Pitbull, are proud advocates of file sharing and have even launched their careers of the back of piracy. In the early days of his career Pitbull uploaded his songs to the file sharing service LimeWire under the name of more popular artists in order to gain exposure. While many people were confused as to why the song they downloaded was another artist, many others liked the music enough to hunt down the true identity of the mystery artist and pay for his music.

Are grounds for divorce different in same-sex marriages?

For the most part, the grounds for divorce in same-sex marriages are the same as that of an opposite-sex marriage. However, under the current system same-sex couples cannot use adultery as a ground for divorce. This is because the definition of adultery involves engaging in sexual intercourse with a person of the opposite sex.

So, does this mean that if your spouse has an affair with a person of the same sex that you are unable to use their actions as a grounds for divorce? Not quite, as although in this scenario you would not be able to use adultery as grounds for divorce, their actions could still be used as a ground for divorce as they could fall under ‘unreasonable behaviour’.