The Existence of Trade Secrets under Texas Law–Fort Worth, Texas Business Law Attorneys

The Existence of Trade Secrets under Texas Law
To determine whether a trade secret exists under Texas law, the Texas Supreme Court has adopted the following nonexclusive, six-factor test, which is largely a set of factors obtained  from §757 of the Restatement of Torts:

(1) the extent to which the information is known outside of his business;

(2) the extent to which it is known by employees and
others involved in his business;

(3) the extent of the measures taken by him to guard the secrecy of the information;

(4) the value of the information to him and to his competitors;

(5) the amount of effort or
money expended by him in developing the information;

(6) the ease or difficulty with which the information could be properly acquired or duplicated by others.

In the application of this test, Texas courts have recognized a wide variety of proprietary information as worthy of protection. Some examples include pricing data, design of a product, business procedures, customer lists, computer programs, manufacturing information, marketing strategy,  technical information and data, and vendor lists.

Williams, McClure & Parmelee is dedicated to high quality legal representation of businesses and insurance companies in a variety of matters. We are experienced Texas civil litigation attorneys based in Fort Worth who know Texas courts and Texas law. For more information, please contact the law firm at 817-335-8800. The firm’s new office location is 5601 Bridge Street, Suite 300, Fort Worth, Texas 76112.