Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California

Re: protecting/lending our formulas, without patents

Clear your problem in details.

According to Intellectual Property Law require to take steps of Patent and/or Copy right.

Agreement for rent, licensing and proprietory not necessary at all.

Re: protecting/lending our formulas, without patents

Although owners of trade secrets have to do this kind of thing all the time, there is no foolproof way to prevent unfair disclosure or misappropriation. Consider how much litigation there is over patent infringement, where there is at least a publicly-available description of what other parties are not supposed to touch! If you disclose your secrets to X, and X tells Y, then Y's records are pilfered by Z, who then makes knockoff products, if there is a patent, you have some protection; but if it's only a trade secret, your tough lawyer-writtem agreement with X probably isn't much help when you have to sue Z. Sure, it should help, but your proof problems in court would be huge.

So, what do you do? Well, start with the best possible non-disclosure agreement. No, better, start by choosing a manufacturer of the highest possible integrity. These deal work well when you have a trustworthy partner which understands trade secrets and how to prevent their downstream dissemination. Then write a good agreement, then follow up periodically to make sure all its provisions are being followed by the manufacturer.

So, an agreement (by whatever name) should contain provisions for non-disclosure, payment of royalties, an acknowledgment of your ownership of the secrets, provisions for accounting, how the product is to be developed, promoted, distributed and priced, how subsequwnt improvements and modifications will be owned, who owns any trademarks placed on the product, and maybe provisions for allocating liability in case of problems such as if the product turned out to be defective and injured someone.