Every employer should be aware that it need not have the equivalent of the secret formula for Coca Cola, or commercially valuable source code, in order to have a trade secret that is protected under the law from unauthorized use or disclosure by competitors.

For example, customer lists that have taken considerable time, effort, and marketing resources are probably the most common form of protectable trade secret.

However, the right to protect competitively valuable, generally unknown business information must be the subject of reasonable efforts to keep the information secret before it meets the California or federal definition of a protectable “trade secret.”