– Privileged information:
‘Information available only on the basis of special privilege’ such as granted to an employee working on a special assignment.
– Proprietary information:
Information that a company owns or is the proprietor of.
This is primarily used in legal sense.
Also called Trade Secret. A trade secret can be virtually any type of information that has not become public and which an employer has taken steps to keep secret.
– Patents:
Differ from trade secrets.
Legally protect specific products from being manufactured and sold b y competitors without the express permission of the patent holder.
They have the drawback of being public and competitors may easily work around them by creating alternate designs.
