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Not everything worth protecting should be patented

Not every valuable innovation belongs in a patent application. For many businesses, critical value sits in confidential know-how – ranging from manufacturing methods and processes to strategy and commercial insight. Used well, trade secrets are a powerful part of an IP strategy. Used poorly, they can be lost without anyone realising until it is too late. We help clients identify, protect and enforce trade secrets – combining legal, technical and commercial insight from an integrated team of IP solicitors and patent attorneys. 

Trade secret protection is not automatic. Businesses need to be able to show that they took reasonable steps to keep information secret. That means clear ownership, careful disclosure, practical controls and a record of what is being protected.

Why trade secrets matter

Trade secrets protect information that is commercially valuable because it is not publicly known.
They can play an important role in protecting business value:

  • Patents are not always the right fit: Protecting an innovation through a patent can require disclosing sensitive details that are better preserved as trade secret information.
  • Value is often in the know-how: Competitive advantage frequently lies in process details, execution techniques, and implementation strategies.
  • Protection evolves with your business: Trade secrets are not fixed in time; they can grow and adapt alongside continuous innovation and operational improvements.
  • Potentially indefinite protection: Unlike patents, trade secret protection can last indefinitely; as long as confidentiality is properly maintained.
  • Difficult (or impossible) to reverse engineer: Where a process or system cannot readily be deduced, trade secrets can offer a durable and highly effective form of protection.
  • Immediate protection: Trade secret rights require no registration, avoiding the costs, delays, and jurisdictional limits of formal registration systems.
  • Protects high-value business intelligence and is highly flexible across industries and assets: Trade secrets can protect technical, R&D, regulatory, commercial, and financial information across virtually any sector, and includes oft-overlooked (but highly vulnerable) information such as customer data, supplier arrangements, pricing strategies, and market insights.

Effective use of trade secrets requires careful management:

  • A growing economic and legal risk: Trade secret misappropriation is estimated to cost advanced economies between 1% and 3% of GDP annually, reflecting both its scale and increasing frequency.
  • Widely relied upon but often misunderstood: Businesses across industries depend heavily on trade secrets to protect innovation and competitive positioning. However, enforcement frequently turns on whether “reasonable steps” were taken to protect confidentiality – making proactive governance essential to preserving rights.

How we can help

Strategy & Audits

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We help clients decide what to patent, what to protect as trade secrets, what to manage as confidential information, and how to manage the boundary between them. We also review key assets, projects and business areas to identify valuable trade secrets and assess whether current safeguards are sufficient.

Governance & Controls

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We design practical trade secrets frameworks that businesses can use, including policies, registers, decision processes, classification and handling rules, disclosure approvals, employees access controls, onboarding and exit procedures, and incident response procedures. We also support clients on the practical measures that help ensure trade secrets are effectively protected.

Contracts & Third-party sharing

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Trade secrets are often put at risk when information is shared externally. We help clients control disclosure through NDAs, collaboration agreements, manufacturing and supply agreements, quality agreements, and publication provisions.

Disputes & Enforcement

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When confidential information is misused or at risk, we act quickly – advising on incident response, investigations, evidence preservation, employee exits, competitor recruitment, breach of confidence and trade secrets claims, urgent injunctions, settlement strategy and cross-border enforcement.

Trade secrets advisors

Daniel McGrath is a Partner and Solicitor (UK) for Marks & Clerk based in London, UK

Daniel McGrath

Partner Solicitor (UK)
Dan is a Partner and a leading patent litigator, specialising in life sciences and biopharmaceutical disputes. He has extensive experience in high-stakes patent and Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) litigation before the English courts and the Unified Patent Court (UPC).
Kamleh Nicola is a partner at Marks & Clerk and Co-head of the firm’s Litigation and Dispute Resolution practice in Canada.

Kamleh J. Nicola

Partner / Co-head of Litigation and Dispute Resolution Barrister and Solicitor
Kamleh Nicola is a partner at Marks & Clerk and Co-head of the firm’s Litigation & Dispute Resolution practice group in Canada, specializing in intellectual property litigation.
Nick McDonald is a Partner and the UK Head of IP Legal Services, specialising in complex multi‑jurisdictional IP disputes and strategic counsel across patents, trademarks, copyright, designs, and trade secrets.

Nick McDonald

Partner UK Head of IP Legal Services
Nick McDonald is a Partner and UK Head of IP Legal Services with Marks & Clerk. He has significant experience building and leading successful legal services teams in IP firms, with a particular focus on complex, multi-jurisdictional intellectual property disputes. Nick advises clients across all IP rights, combining litigation expertise with strategic counsel and licensing capabilities.
Simon Portman specialises as a commercial contract lawyer for technology companies

Simon Portman

Of Counsel Solicitor (UK)
Simon specialises as a commercial contract lawyer for technology companies. He advises on a wide range of contracts, including licenses, R&D collaborations, manufacturing agreements and procurement documentation.
Photo: Richard Gibbs

Richard Gibbs

Partner Chartered (UK) and European Patent Attorney, UPC Representative
Richard advises clients in patenting and other IP matters in the field of biotechnology and has particular expertise in technologies relating to antibodies, vaccines, biologics, virology, bacteriology and molecular biology.
Mairi Rudkin is a Partner, Chartered (UK) and European Patent Attorney, UPC Representative based in Marks & Clerk's Glasgow, UK office. Mairi handles a diverse range of chemical subject matter including medicinal chemistry, formulation chemistry, polymers and sustainable chemistry.

Mairi Rudkin

Partner Chartered (UK) and European Patent Attorney, UPC Representative
Mairi joined the patent profession after working in the fields of synthetic organic chemistry and medicinal chemistry.
Yann Robin

Yann Robin

Principal Chartered (UK) and European Patent Attorney, UPC Representative
Yann works with a broad range of clients, from local SMEs to universities and large multinational companies.

Key services

Whether your business already relies on confidential know‑how or you are beginning to explore trade secrets, we work with you to identify key assets and implement effective protection and enforcement strategies.

  • Patent, trade secret and confidential information strategy
  • Trade secret audits and risk reviews
  • Policies, registers and governance frameworks
  • Trade secret lifecycle management
  • Employee access, onboarding and exit controls
  • Training for teams handling sensitive information
  • Contractual protections and third-party disclosure controls
  • Supply chain, technical transfer and external sharing controls
  • M&A, investment, licensing and transaction support
  • Regulatory, publication and external disclosure review
  • Internal investigations and incident response
  • Breach of confidence and trade secrets litigation
  • Urgent injunctions and cross-border enforcement
  • Global trade secrets programme support