Confidential Information: Close Examination

Confidential Information: Close Examination

One interesting category of protected information is that which is gleaned by “close examination”, i.e., inspection that goes beyond just casual review:

Exemplar N4B-1

“Confidential Information” means information not generally known to third parties and which is proprietary to the Disclosing Party including, but not limited to, (a) information relating to the Party’s strategies (e.g., financial, product, permitting, licensing, investment, sales, research and development, engineering, etc.), relationships, technical know-how, trade secrets, financial information, pricing policies, operational methods, business plans, inventions, business affairs, and customer identity, (b) information about a Party’s product that is available only through the Close Examination of the product without regard to the ownership of the particular instance of the product which is subjected to the Close Examination, and (c) information identified by the Disclosing Party as third party information for which the Disclosing Party has an obligation of secrecy. For purposes of the foregoing, “Close Examination” means the viewing, inspection, or other examination of an item in a manner that is of a degree that is greater than a casual observation of the general features of the item.