NDA and Confidentiality agreements
Protecting business information and ideas is absolutely essential to ensuring competitiveness in the modern IT and creative sector and NDA (non-disclosure agreement) and confidentiality agreements are key to this process. Unfortunately, many businesses, particularly small businesses, often operate on trust, as it feels a little too formal to try and introduce the restrictions of this type of agreement into a fairly informal work setting. However, the consequences of not using NDA and confidentiality agreements are that essential elements of the business, ground breaking innovations, and crucial business secrets can end up being sold or passed on, considerably reducing competitive advantage.
NDA and Confidentiality agreements should contain a number of basic clauses that provide protection for your business. These include an outline of what material, knowledge or information is confidential, what the non-disclosure period is, whether there are any exclusions, what disclosure is permitted, the term for which the agreement is binding and whether the agreement is unilateral (the confidential information is only being disclosed by one party) or bilateral (both parties are disclosure confidential information).
For those businesses that don’t use NDA and confidentiality agreements, here are a few situations in which they might come in useful:
– Discussing an invention or the possibility of applying for a patent for something that has been developed within the business. Whether you are talking to an inventor support organisation, a consultant or a patent advisor, it’s advisable to enter into a NDA or confidentiality agreement with them beforehand.
– Working with freelancers or consultants who are not employees of your company – to protect your business’ ideas and innovations you must ensure agreements are signed before any confidential information is handed over.
– When choosing a provider, manufacturer or even a financial backer for your business, protecting its confidential information via an agreement is essential.
Law Hound offers tailored services for IT and creative sector businesses looking to protect their confidentiality. Our packages are fixed price and provide all essential advice and support, without any unnecessary extra costs.