What is a trade secret and how can my Ontario business legally protect one?

A trade secret is confidential business information that has value because it is not generally known — a customer list, a formula, a manufacturing process, or pricing and sourcing information are common examples. Unlike trademarks, copyright, or patents, there is no registration system or dedicated statute creating trade secret rights in Canada; protection instead comes from keeping the information genuinely confidential and enforcing that confidentiality through contract and the common-law duty of confidence.

Practically, that means using written non-disclosure agreements with employees, contractors, and business partners before sharing sensitive information, restricting internal access on a need-to-know basis, and marking sensitive documents accordingly. If a trade secret is misused — say, an employee takes a customer list to a competitor — the business can potentially sue for breach of confidence or breach of contract, but only if it can show the information was actually treated as secret and that reasonable steps were taken to protect it. Information that is publicly available, easily reverse-engineered, or shared loosely without any confidentiality expectation generally will not qualify, so documenting your confidentiality practices matters as much as the agreements themselves.