Top Tips for Safeguarding your Confidential Information
- Identify which information in your business is confidential.
- Mark confidential information contained in documents as ‘confidential’? You can secure some protection by doing this.
- Consider carefully where this information is stored. Have security measures in place to protect this information? This information should not be easily accessible by unauthorised persons.
- Ensure your employees know which information relating to your company is confidential? Employees will be under an implied duty to maintain confidentiality but also consider express duties in their employment contracts.
- Only disclose confidential information to employees, contractors, customers etc where it is absolutely necessary in the circumstances.
- If you are sharing highly confidential information with other individuals or businesses ask them to sign a confidentiality agreement. Recording the terms under which you exchange the confidential information gives added legal certainty.
- Keep a fully documented audit trail when developing new technical products - this could comprise of records of key milestones, engineer’s notes, calculations etc.
- Apply the © copyright symbol to your written work, together with the name of your business and year of creation. This will signal to third parties that you protect your intellectual property.
- Consider adding a more detailed copyright notice on technical drawings, e.g. -‘Copyright in this drawing belongs to XYZ and its contents are confidential to XYZ. It [is to be used only for purposes specified in advance by XYZ [in writing] and it] is not to be reproduced in whole or in part or any of its contents disclosed to any third party without the prior written consent of XYZ.’
- Consider taking out intellectual property insurance. Such policies will often cover the costs associated with either a pursuit or a defence of an intellectual property action.
[16/06/2009]
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