Preserving your revenue-management system as a trade secret
详细信息 查看全文
文摘
A hotel's or airline's revenue-management system is (1) quite valuable and (2) a trade secret. Trade secrets involve special proprietary information and processes, including publicly available information that is assembled in a special manner by the trade secret's owner. Establishing that a process is a trade secret involves demonstrating that it is, in fact, a secret, that information about the process is restricted to employees and licensess, and that the owner makes a specific effort to shield the information. Hotels' revenue-management systems are particularly at risk for either general disclosure or corporate espionage because of the relatively rapid turnover of employees and the fact that those employees often go to work for competitors. Thus, a wise hotelier will take the following steps to protect the company's revenue-management system: (1) maintain the information's physical security by restricting access, (2) place restrictive legends on the information stating that it is in fact confidential, (3) state in employee handbooks that the revenue-management information is a trade secret and will be shared only in confidence, (4) require revenue-management employees to sign confidentiality agreements, (5) train employees and remind them regularly of the confidentiality of the revenue-management information, and (6) ask exiting employees to reaffirm their agreement not to share the confidential trade secrets. The former employer may also consider sending an advisory letter to a departing employee's new employer stating that the revenue-management information is confidential, but that letter-writing step involves other issues that require legal counsel.