You have invented something and want to be able to stop others from making it. Apply for a patent or keep the invention as a trade secret? If you get a patent, you can stop others from making your invention for 15 years. If you keep the invention a trade secret, it’s possible nobody can make your invention forever. Are trade secrets therefore the way to go? Why apply for a patent when you can keep an invention a trade secret forever?

Trade Secrets Must Remain a Secret

To be a trade secret, the information must remain a secret. Once the information is no longer a secret, it loses its trade secret protection. Think of the Coca-Cola formula. It’s locked away in a vault at Coca-Cola’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. It doesn’t mean Coke as a soda must be a secret, Coca-Cola sells plenty of Coke sodas every day. However, the formula to make Coke is kept a secret so that the formula retains trade secret protection. If the formula becomes public knowledge, it will lose its trade secret protection.

Trade Secrets Cannot Stop Independent Discovery

If you were to break into Coca-Cola’s vault and steal their Coke recipe, you would be in big trouble for theft because you would have stolen their trade secret. However, if you can figure out the Coke formula on your own, without getting any secret information from Coca-Cola, you would be fine to make Coke.

Let’s think about that because it’s important. Let’s say you start mixing different ingredients together and end up making Coke the same way Coca-Cola does it. You could start selling your own Coke. The key, however, is that your discovery must be independent. You could not have had any help from Coca-Cola employees or made it by stealing the Coca-Cola formula in any way. Your discovery must be independent. That is a major limitation of trade secrets. Trade secrets only protect information you keep secret and are not independently figured out by others.

Patents Can Stop Independent Discovery

A patent, however, can stop someone from making your invention even if that someone independently discovers how to make it. That is the advantage of a patent over a trade secret. In fact, one of the requirements to get a patent is that you must teach the world how to make your invention. In your patent application, you are required to teach people how to make your invention. Then, if you have a patent, you can stop others from making your invention for 20 years. After that, it’s open for everyone to make.

Patent Inventions That Can Be Figured Out

The conclusion is, if you create an invention that others can break apart and figure out how to make, you’ll want a patent so that you can stop others from making that invention. Because remember, trade secrets cannot stop others from making your invention if they figure out how to make it on their own.

For most products, chances are that once you start selling it, some engineer can easily reverse engineer it and figure out how to make it. Then, only a patent can stop others from making your invention. Even large drug companies usually patent their drugs because chances are, another drug company will be able to independently figure out how to make the drug once it hits the market.

However, if you have made something that is so advanced that you are confident others cannot figure out how to make it, you could decide to go the trade secret route. Just make sure you keep it a secret.