Coatings World - December 2012

carefully” may not hit the mark, specifically
listing shear maxima and times of mixing
might very well do so. Processes concern-
ing applying a known coating to a par-
ticular surface such as iron pentacarbonyl
have been held to be protectable, as have
. . . manufacturing fiberglass using a par-
ticular type of combustion chamber with
specific types of air jets and air rings . . .
how to build epoxy rods reinforced with
fiberglass for handling hot electrical wires .
. . using pigment-carrying “vehicles” to en-
hance color quality in latex paint . . . more
environmentally-sound manufacturing of
coated paper . . . dust mitigation techniques
peculiar to a particular toxic ingredient in
a manufacturing process . . . high-pressure
processes for making polyethylene where
the trade secrets lay in the minor pressure
variances (in this case, eight-ninths of the
process was admittedly publicly known) .
. . a pressure process for expanding poly-
styrene to maximize resiliency/pliability/
shock absorbence . . . processes for recov-
ering and re-using catalysts and reactants
from a manufacturing process. As a chem-
ist, the take home lessons for me include
looking outside my actual formulation to
the processes I use for brand
new (to me and my clients)
trade secret assets. As a law-
yer, I can tell you that while
“process” and “methods”
patents typically have much
less value than “composition
of matter” patents, it is not
uncommon for the exact op-
posite hierarchy to be true for
trade secret processes. In fact,
since processes are usually as
much art as they are science,
these techniques are routinely
the quintessential trade secret
surrounding a coating.

Procedures (even if they are only your hand-picked collections of ASTM methods), quality control manuals, regulatory compliance manuals, etc. And, here’s one that my clients usually overlook, but one that courts have routinely upheld as almost ideal trade secrets – maintenance and repair methods and logs.

You need to know that courts have routinely held that, despite sale or other commercialization steps, secrets in a product like a coating itself remain trade secrets. This is good. What we all appreciate only too well, and few outside our industry know, is that coatings are typically very concentrated suspensions of solids. And, we know and many others don’t, that even minor alterations in the characteristics of that suspension can result in cataclysmic failure. And, we know that once the film formation process starts, many of the volatile components depart the coated surface never to be seen (or detected) again – despite the fact that without them, the film would not have formed and the product would have failed. So, as chemists we actually can enhance the trade secret protection status of our products with this knowledge. We can maintain as a trade secret our “negative” data where we have either purposefully caused our formulations to fail or simply found them to fail in the normal laboratory process.

So, dig deep again and identify even more of your corporate assets heretofore un- or under-appreciated. Search for them where they lie cloaked and unseen, in the intimacy of the chemistry itself. Look for something that in many cases is unrecognizable but to a few chemistry nerds like us, and certainly not necessarily in the common knowledge surrounding our formulations. Do your trade secret audits with Sam Cooke’s famous lyrics in “Wonderful World,” in mind. “Don’t know much about history, don’t know much biology, don’t know much about a science book, don’t know much about the French I took, but I do know that I love you (my beloved trade secrets), and I know that if you love me too, what a wonderful world this would be.” Admit it. You’re gonna be whistling this classic all day long. You’re welcome. CW