Technology companies and start-ups are familiar with protecting inventions with patents, and protecting their secret formulas, source code, and algorithms as trade secrets. But tech companies may not be aware of another powerful form of IP protection in California known as “negative trade secrets,” which are intended to protect a company’s secret know-how gained from extensive research investment about what does not work.
Consider Thomas Edison’s quote about his lightbulb experiments: “I haven’t failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Imagine that Edison’s assistant quit and was hired by a competitor. The former assistant’s “negative know-how” from Edison’s 10,000 failed attempts would allow his new employer to start on attempt 10,001. But while a trade secret is a company’s intellectual property, an employee’s general knowledge,…
