Avatar has grossed $2.2 billion worldwide and that figure is still rising. What if another film were to capture the same essence of that film and be released prior to Avatar, or a member of Cameron’s team leaked the script of Avatar on the internet before its cinema release?  20th Century Fox will certainly not be impressed to see their profits dwindle. After all, film-making is big business.

What is a key asset in business? Information.

You accumulate it and nurture it by cultivating personal relationships with customers and place it on a database. You may even create or invent something which can amount to a “trade secret”. Coca Cola, anyone?

But do you protect it? And if so, then how?

The theft of confidential information (i.e. information that has a quality of confidence about it and not in the public domain) does not require hi-tech equipment in order to obtain it – we are not in Mission Impossible and Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hawke does not need to be winched into some hi-tech facility to take the information!

In its crudest form, an employee can take files home and photocopy them or download information onto a disk or USB stick. They may also try and divert business opportunities to a competitor that they hope to join.

 As a business you have mechanisms to protect the information, namely:

1. Ensuring you have the proper contractual documentation: express clauses of confidentiality, intellectual property and restrictive covenants, or have a separate non-disclosure agreement;
2. Rights arising under various intellectual property rights, such as database rights;
3. Implementing practical measures, by having systems in place to prevent the downloading of information on a USB stick.

Whatever industry you are in, competition is a given; but you know what – it has to be fair.

Ask yourselves this: if you were in James Cameron’s shoes, would you be happy if, say, George Lucas made a similar film and was hailed as a ‘visionary’ of the new decade, broke all box office records, made millions in merchandising, and, come 7 March, became “King of the World”?

Identify what your confidential information is and protect it.

For further information, please contact me at krishna.santra@mablaw.co.uk