Trade Secrets and Data Protection in Latin America: A Comparative Study (Max Planck Institute for Innovation & Competition Research Paper, No. 25-08), 2025, 145
Undisclosed information, or trade secrets, constitutes a category of intellectual property encompassing confidential commercial or industrial information conferring a competitive advantage to a company. More specifically, any undisclosed information that a natural person or a legal entity legitimately holds, which may be used in any productive, industrial, or commercial activity and is capable of being passed on to a third party could be considered a business secret. This protection mechanism is advantageous to protect those inventions which are not patentable (i.e. it does not meet the minimum requirements, or the subject matter is not eligible for protection). Special consideration is required for the test data for pharmaceutical products, which are also protected by undisclosed information regulations.
