An Italian poet wrote that “a secret remains a secret…until you make someone promise never to reveal it.” Unfortunately for this poet, and all those who have suffered at the hands of those who promised but failed to keep a secret, he did not take additional steps to protect his information. But luckily for you, and anyone else seeking to establish trade secret protection over proprietary and confidential information, there are measures companies can take to protect their information. Hopefully, this article will help you prevent employees, third parties, or anyone else from stealing or misappropriating your hard-earned trade secrets.

First, what is a “trade secret?” A trade secret is any information that, if kept confidential, gives the holder an advantage over competitors. For a more detailed explanation, click here. Trade secret information is so important to functioning business that a federal law called the Defend Trade Secrets Act, and similar state statutes, afford serious protections to trade secret owners. But only holders of actual “trade secrets” can avail themselves of the statutory protections. So what can a company do to qualify its information as a trade secret? Below are three steps companies should consider taking, but note that they are not all of the measures that companies should take to best protect their trade secrets.

1. Keep Your Secret Information under Lock and Key

Establishing trade secret protection over information starts with its owner. Implement reasonable measures to keep your information secret. If your information is electronic, use password-encrypted codes to access the information. Isolate the trade secret materials from any other electronically stored information by creating a separate folder, and be sure to access the information only from your office, avoiding things like public Wi-Fi or publicly-used computers.

If your information is on printed paper, use anti-copy paper and mark it “CONFIDENTIAL.” Keep the paper in a locked safe, and keep the safe somewhere secure. Be sure to access the information only when absolutely necessary, and keep it safely stored at all other times. For example, KFC keeps Colonel’s Original Recipe in a vault in a closet down a hidden hallway inside its legal department. Only one person in the world knows the combination for the safe and only two people know which of the 11 “public” herbs and spices actually go into the recipe, and how much of each.

2. Limit Disclosure

You should follow KFC’s lead by limiting disclosure of your trade secrets to only those employees who absolutely need to know the information. Typically, only a handful (at most) of your employees actually need to know your trade secrets, and allowing others even access to such information unnecessarily weakens your claim that your information is a trade secret.

3. Monitor Employee Conduct

Have your IT staff carefully monitor employee conduct, both in person and electronically. Regularly check employee e-mails and check in with your employees to ensure that they are not sharing or even unnecessarily discussing your trade secret information. Many times employees, especially when preparing to leave their employer, e-mail company confidential information, such as secret customer information, to their personal e-mails. These types of disclosures can cripple a business, and monitoring employee activity not only helps get in front of employees who are trying to steal company information but also provides a partial basis for arguing that you are keeping your information secret, as required for legal trade secret protection.

Promises to keep a secret, as the Italian poet wrote, rarely will keep information secret. Instead, implement these steps to help protect your precious trade secrets.