Many businesses, when looking to protect their innovation, often consider patent protection by default. However, this approach shortchanges other available and protectable intellectual property (IP) rights such as trade secrets. Rather, trade secrets and patents complement each other in a robust IP portfolio. By adopting some best practices, each innovation can be catalogued and protected as a bundle of trade secrets and patents based on what rights each protects, how rights are preserved and enforced, and how assets are monetized. 

Best Practices for a Cohesive IP Strategy

In general, a patent is a public asset with a legally enforceable exclusionary right, making patents relatively easy to monetize and protect so long as the considerable expenses are paid and infringing activity is detectable. In contrast, a trade secret is cheap to obtain and maintain, has a potentially unlimited lifespan, and requires nothing more than maintaining the secrecy of the information. Its enforceability, however, is limited to protecting against others obtaining it via improper means.