Issue link: https://htpgraphics.uberflip.com/i/246967
Confidentiality Section 4 Could your work or other information or results be useful to someone else if they ever got hold of it? Could any of your work be potentially patentable or registrable as a design? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, it is important to consider confidentiality. Confidentiality is the best way to protect your Know-How. The 'someone else' could be an individual from a company. They could be a member of another research group or someone from another institution. They could even be a friend or relative. The information may include results, chemical formulae, information from laboratory notebooks, experimental procedures or techniques, information concerning the handling or programming of equipment or source code. It may be personal or commercially sensitive information such as customer lists or results from market research. These are just a few examples. It does not matter how informal a conversation or meeting may seem. You must always consider the nature of the information you are disclosing and whether, in the circumstances, it is appropriate to disclose. Let's look at a few examples. James has developed the source code for a new computer program. If someone else is able to access the source code they may well be able to write a program to undertake the same task but using different code. This could then be used or developed further into a product which could be extremely lucrative. The source code is therefore highly-confidential information and would need to be protected from disclosure. Mary has invented, in conjunction with her team, a novel technique for protein analysis. This invention is potentially patentable. One of the criteria for the grant of a patent is that the invention must be new and must not have been previously disclosed to the public. If any information relating to the invention is disclosed before filing a patent application, this would completely stop a patent from being granted in most countries. 24