The similarities among countries in defining trade secrets correspond well with the three requirements of Article 39 of TRIPS. In fact, on this matter, TRIPS reflected then -current practice in many coun tries and it has shaped subsequent law-making. In practice, the TRIPS requirements for trade secrets are now generally applied in law as follows:

• Secrecy. The information protected must actually be secret. Secrecy need not be absolute. The trade secret owner may share the information with employees and business partners. Secrecy requires instead that the information must not be readily publically accessible and that it is revealed to others only under conditions that maintain secrecy with respect to the broader public

.• Commercial Value.The information must have economic value as a result of its being secret. Trade secret law most typically protects commercial information; that information must derive some utility from being kept secret.

• Reasonable Efforts to Maintain Secrecy. The information must be the subject of reasonable efforts on the part of the rights holder to maintain its secrecy. By its nature, a trade secret claim arises when measures to protect the secret have failed. Thus, the law does not req uire one who claims a trade secret to be entirely successful at protecting it. However, the law does require the owner to make