: A perpetual question from clients is whether a new development should be protected by filing a patent application or kept as a trade secret? Patents are granted by national patent offices for new, useful and not obvious inventions. Patents require a full and public description of the idea and the details needed by a skilled person to put that ideaintopractice. For example, Section 27(3)(c) of the Patent Act requires that for machines, the patent “explain the principle of the machine and the best mode in which the inventor has contemplated the application of that principle”. This quid pro . . . [more] The post Trade Secrets as an Alternative to Patent Protection appeared first on Slaw