Spill Your (Trade) Secrets: Knowledge Networks as Innovation Drivers

Abstract

Theories of intellectual property take the individual inventor or the firm as the unit of innovation. But studies in economic sociology show that in complex fields where knowledge is rapidly advancing and widely dispersed among different firms, the locus of innovation is neither an individual nor a single firm. Rather, innovative ideas originate in the informal networks of learning and collaboration that cut across firms. Understanding innovation in this subset of industries as emerging out of networks of informal information-sharing across firms challenges traditional utilitarian theories of trade secret law-which assume trade secret protection is needed to prevent excessive private, self-help efforts to preserve secrecy. Doctrinally, knowledge network research suggests that the scope of trade secret protection in these industries should be narrow. In these industries, strong trade secret rights that grant managers tight control over employee-inventors' informal information-sharing practices are bad innovation policy. Rather, optimizing trade secret law requires tailoring the strength of protection to match industry characteristics, narrowing trade secret scope in those industries where informal information-sharing networks are predicted to enhance innovative output. In turn, because industry types tend to cluster around geographic centers, the importance of tailoring cautions against current trends towards uniformity by federalizing trade secret law and favors state experimentalism in designing trade secret law and policy.

Cooperative protection of technical secrets in cultural industry cluster-based on evolutionary game model of leading enterprises and following enterprises

“…The simulation results of the impact of the difference in the number of technical secrets between the leading and following enterprises on the evolution of the system are shown in Fig 6 . Where (A2) respectively take the value of 30,35,40,45,46, corresponding to the difference in the number of technical secrets of 30, 25, 20, 15, 14 respectively, to observe the leading enterprises and followers to choose collaborative protection of the strategic choice. As can be seen from Fig 6, when the difference in the number of technical secrets between 20 and 15, the two sides of the game subject strategy began to change, and with the smaller the difference, the trend of its game strategy change synergistic protection accelerated.…”

“…Alternatively, in the TCM cultural industry, screening for oral teaching and master-apprentice teaching in the areas of formulation, production, and processing techniques, diagnosis, and treatment [ 39 ]. As for the dissemination channels and information reception, Pedraza-Farina [ 40 ] proposes to control the use of technical secrets according to the characteristics of the industry and narrow the informal knowledge and information sharing network. Or to limit the channels of technical secret protection circulation by means of new, not yet widely disseminated encryption technology [ 41 ].…”

“…Or to limit the channels of technical secret protection circulation by means of new, not yet widely disseminated encryption technology [ 41 ]. Although these means of protection curb the leakage of technical secrets to a certain extent, they cannot avoid informal learning and cooperation across firms, challenging the over-privatization of technical secrets and self-help protection systems [ 40 ].…”

Farmer-driven innovation: lessons from a case study of subterranean clover seed production

“…Innovation is likely to proceed more efficiently when networks of informal know-how sharing are encouraged. Networks of knowledge sharing among competitors have enabled important discoveries in industries from steam engines to semiconductors (Pedraza-Fariña, 2016). These networks should be supported; shared knowledge can still be protected.…”