Nothing on this page is advice about your job, and no article can be. If you want your own facts looked at, a Minnesota employment attorney can do that — and several of the deadlines described on this site are short enough that waiting is itself a decision.
Also called: trade secrets.
“Trade secret” means information, including a formula, pattern, compilation, program, device, method, technique, or process, that:
(i) derives independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable by proper means by, other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use, and
(ii) is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy.
Minn. Stat. § 325C.01, subd. 5. Item (ii) is a fact about the employer’s own conduct, not about the information: material nobody bothered to protect is not a trade secret however valuable it is. The same subdivision adds that secrecy is “not negated merely because an employee or other person has acquired the trade secret without express or specific notice that it is a trade secret” where that person “knows or has reason to know” the owner expects secrecy — so the absence of a stamped label decides nothing by itself.
Where this comes up
- Minnesota's Trade Secrets Act protects secret information, not what you learned how to do — and the element employers most often fail is one of their own
- The Exit Meeting: Every Document Handed Across the Table Runs on Its Own Statute and Its Own Clock
- Minnesota's noncompete ban did not touch your NDA or your nonsolicit — and no Minnesota employment or civil-rights statute voids a settlement NDA about harassment
Sources checked September 8, 2026. Citations independently verified against the primary source September 8, 2026.