4 days ago
- Trade secrets protect knowledge by keeping it confidential, deriving value from restricted circulation, and have evolved from guild secrecy to modern corporate IP law.
- The transition from guild systems to industrial capitalism saw trade secrets transform from communal protections to legally protected individual property.
- Trade secret law expanded dramatically, especially since the 1970s, to cover virtually any valuable information, including AI outputs, with indefinite protection unless reverse-engineered or disclosed.
- The author used algorithmically generated sources like Webster's Timeline History to speculate on future trade secret law, drawing parallels between historical and algorithmic knowledge assembly.