This IPR tool provides protection to persons/institutions of information, which is lawfully under their control from being disclosed to, acquired by or used by others without their consent in a manner contrary to commercial practices so long as the information is secret and has commercial value because it is secret.
It is expected that the person/institution must have taken reasonable steps to keep the information secret. This also applies to test data whose origination requires considerable effort (e.g. for marketing approval/ FDA clearances, etc.) submitted to the government or governmental agencies for statuary clearances. This underlines the significance of institutions having a well established and operative "information classification policy" and confidentiality clauses in service contracts with employees/associates.