1. Trade secret protection may be regarded as satisfactory in Mexico, considering that trade secrets will be enforceable not only against the person who illegally obtains the same from the premises of the owner of said trade secret, but also against the third persons who may acquire the trade secret from said first person and use it for obtaining economical benefits or for damaging the owner of the trade secret.
2. The only problem that still remains in the Mexican law in connection with trade secret protection, is the fact that, by definition, a trade secret will only be considered as such when the information is contained in documents, electronic or magnetic means, optical disks, microfilms, films or other similar instruments. This leaves out any trade secrets that are in the minds of persons without having been transferred to a support means, which may represent a serious drawback at least in certain particular instances.
3. No information will be considered as a trade secret if said information falls in the public domain, is obvious for a technician in the art (without hindsight) or must be disclosed by a legal or judicial disposition. However, any information disclosed by a legal disposition will not fall in the public domain when said information is disclosed to any authority for the purpose of obtaining licenses, permits, authorizations, registrations or any other acts of the authority.
4. If a trade secret must be disclosed in any judicial or administrative process, the receiving authority will adopt all the necessary measures to prevent its disclosure to third parties who are not parties to the controversy. No interested party in any case will be able to disclose or use the trade secret defined above.
The content of this article is intended only to provide general guidelines related to this particular matter. For your specific circumstances, full specialist advice is recommended.
