31 July 2025
When you're building a business, some of your most valuable assets aren’t physical — they’re ideas, plans, know-how, and insider knowledge. This type of information is known as confidential information, and it plays a key role in protecting your competitive edge.
But how do you keep it safe? Unlike trade marks or patents, confidential information doesn’t come with a formal registration. Instead, it’s protected by the nature of the relationship in which it’s shared — often supported by tools like non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) or confidentiality clauses in contracts.
What Is Confidential Information?
Confidential information includes anything not publicly known that gives your business a commercial advantage — like business strategies, customer lists, product recipes, technical know-how, pricing models, or marketing plans.
To be legally protected, the information must:
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Be clearly identifiable as confidential
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Have commercial value because it’s not known to the public
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Be disclosed in a way that implies it should be kept private
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Be misused or disclosed without permission, causing harm
If someone breaches that trust — say, a former employee or contractor — you may be entitled to remedies such as damages or an injunction to stop further use.
Common Scenarios
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Employment relationships: Employees must not use or disclose confidential information during or after their employment. That includes trade secrets, internal processes, and anything they learned in the course of their job.
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Collaborations and partnerships: Sharing ideas before a deal is signed? Use an NDA to define what’s confidential and set the rules.
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Trade mark matters: Evidence of trade mark use (such as sales figures or marketing data) is often confidential. It may be submitted privately to regulators without becoming public.
How Is It Different from Public Knowledge?
The more widely known your information is — within your industry, company, or online — the less likely it is to qualify as confidential. Courts look at factors like:
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How secret the information is
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Who knows it
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What steps you’ve taken to keep it private
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How valuable or hard it is to replicate
International Protection
Confidential information is also recognised under global agreements like TRIPS, which means your trade secrets can be protected in many countries — as long as they remain secret and commercially valuable.
FAQs: Quick Answers for Busy Business Owners
What can I protect?
Ideas, recipes, processes, customer lists, internal documents — anything not publicly known that gives your business an edge.
Does it need to be completely secret?
Not totally — but it can’t be public knowledge or something others in your industry would easily know or access.
What happens if there’s a breach?
If someone uses or shares your confidential information without permission, you can take legal action. Remedies may include compensation or court orders to stop them.
Any exceptions?
If the disclosure is in the public interest (like reporting a crime), it may not be considered a breach.
How IP Solved Can Help
At IP Solved, we help businesses protect what makes them unique. From drafting NDAs to advising on trade secrets and confidential information, our team can guide you on how to safeguard your valuable business insights — before problems arise.
Talk to IP Solved to ensure your information stays protected, your relationships are clear, and your competitive advantage is secure.
