How do you protect trade secrets and confidential information?

A Former Employee Took Source Code, Customer Data or Confidential Files

Act within days, not weeks. These claims are usually won or lost on evidence that is overwritten or deleted in the ordinary course of business, and courts assess urgency partly by how quickly you moved. The strongest routes are generally breach of confidence and, for senior people, breach of fiduciary duty - rather than a non-compete clause, which is narrowly construed and unenforceable or restricted in a growing number of jurisdictions.

Someone Breached an NDA or Confidentiality Agreement

An NDA claim is a contract claim, so the agreement governs - but the practical obstacle is usually proof of loss rather than proof of breach. Disclosure is often demonstrable while the resulting damage is not, which is why liquidated damages and injunctive relief provisions matter so much, and why the parallel claim in breach of confidence, which does not depend on a contract at all, is frequently the stronger one.

Who Owns an Invention or Work an Employee Created

The default runs the **opposite way** from contractors, and that contrast is the most useful thing to know. Work created by an employee in the course of employment generally belongs to the employer, whereas work by an independent contractor generally belongs to the contractor absent a written assignment. But the employer default is narrower than employers assume: inventions made outside the scope of duties, on the employee's own time and without company resources, may well belong to the employee.