"Trade secrets, just as other intellectual property rights, can be extremely valuable for a company's growth and sometimes even critical for its survival". Discuss. Also explain what kind of information is protected by t

Trade secrets and their importance: Trade secrets are intellectual property (IP) rights on confidential information which may be sold or licensed. In general, to qualify as a trade secret, the information must be: commercially valuable because it is secret, be known only to a limited group of persons. Trade secrets are secret practices and processes that give a company a competitive advantage over its competitors. Trade secrets may differ across jurisdictions but have three common traits: not being public, offering some economic benefit, and being actively protected. Trade secrets are widely used by businesses across the economy to protect their know-how and other commercially valuable information and thereby promote competitiveness and innovation. Information that is protected by trade secrets: In general, any confidential business information which provides an enterprise a competitive edge and is unknown to others may be protected as a trade secret. Trade secrets encompass both technical information, such as information concerning manufacturing processes, pharmaceutical test data, designs and drawings of computer programs, and commercial information, such as distribution methods, list of suppliers and clients, and advertising strategies. Other examples of information that may be protected by trade secrets include financial information, formulas and recipes and source codes.