Your intellectual property (confidential information, copyrights, trade secrets, trademarks, and patents) provides you with a competitive advantage. It is critical to take reasonable steps to protect your confidential information as secret, for example, by only disclosing it under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). This is because information like customer lists, proprietary research and development activities, and chemical formulas can lose their trade secret status if you do not use reasonable efforts to keep the information secret. A court is less likely to take action to help you if you do not treat your own secret information with proper care.