Once developed, a trade secret can continue to exist if its owner takes reasonable measures (or makes reasonable efforts) to maintain its secrecy. Reasonable measures are, of course, a legal requirement.
Importantly, a trade secret still may be misappropriated even if it is the subject of reasonable measures. So, a prudent trade secret owner’s goal should be reasonable measures that effectively mitigate the risk of trade secret misappropriation – in other words, reasonable measures that are pragmatically designed to achieve results in the cyber-age global economy. In a recent article entitled “Valuable, but vulnerable,” I have set forth a 7-step approach towards achieving that goal in the cyber-age global economy. You read the article in full here.