Without any special legal protection for trade secrets, however, the secretive inventor risks that an employee or contractor will disclose the proprietary information.
Trade secret law aims to promote innovation, although it accomplishes this objective in a very different manner than patent protection. ( ① )
Notwithstanding the advantages of obtaining a patent, many innovators prefer to protect their innovation through secrecy. ( ② )
They may believe that the cost and delay of seeking a patent are too great or that secrecy better protects their investment and increases their profit. ( ③ )
They might also believe that the invention can best be utilized over a longer period of time than a patent would allow. ( ④ )
Once the idea is released, it will be “free
as the air”
under the background norms of a free market economy. ( ⑤ )
Such a predicament would lead any inventor seeking to rely upon secrecy to spend an inordinate amount of resources building high and impassable fences around their research facilities and greatly limiting the number of people with access to the proprietary information. * patent: 특허 ** predicament: 곤경
