Trade secrets are another type of intellectual property that is known by individual employees but that needs to be owned by the employer. Even though there undoubtedly are individuals within the company who know the secret formula, through a series of measures that limit access to the formula, and probably by also using contractual obligations, the company has retained ownership of this asset for over 100 years. In the Peace v. Conway case mentioned above, the employer claimed that his customer list was a trade secret. For customer lists to be a trade secret, the company must take certain steps to affirmatively protect the secrecy of the lists. For this reason, a trade secret protection program is often combined with a contract obligating the employees not to solicit the employer's customers for some period after the employee leaves.
Trademarks are names or logos that are associated with goods or services.
They are useful to consumers to identify the source of those goods or services. Trademark ownership issues pitting employer against employee are not common, but can occur when an employee creates a mark or a logo for the employer, but claims that ownership was never transferred. The issues are the same as those discussed above regarding copyright works made for hire. A trademark issue that frequently arises in small closely held businesses is one where an individual may have controlled the use of a name before starting the company, but the name is now used by the company, and the question of name ownership arises. The issue also arises in instances where sister corporations use the same or similar names, and becomes particularly problematic when one or more of the sister corporations is sold off to a different owner, and there is no longer a single owner controlling the use of the common name.