Deciding between a Patent and a Trade secret

A Patent gives an inventor a short license to exclude others from using their invention.  A patented invention is supposed to be a new, useful, and non-obvious machine, article of manufacture, process or composition of matter; or improvements to any of those things.  A Trade secret is any secret that a business uses that is worth money to the business because of its secrecy.  Trade secrets are perpetual and a person can sue any party that steals their trade secret.

A trade secret can be had instantly for the cost of implementing security processes that make the invention a secret.  A patent takes four years and filing a patent starts at $12,000.  When you apply for a patent, whether or not you are awarded the patent, the patent becomes public information (with few exceptions).  When you decide to make something a trade secret, you keep it a secret and it does not become public information.  A trade secret runs the risk of being the subject of a patent by a third party, in that case the trade secret user could be held to be infringing on the patent owned by the third party; independent creation of an invention is no defense to allegations of patent infringement.  Patent law is more protective than trade secret law in that it allows for remedies against infringers regardless of the infringers' intent.  Trade secret law only allows for remedies against people and businesses who steal the trade secret from the trade secret owner.

The valuable information that can be protected by trade secrets is much broader than the inventions that can be protected by patents.  A good rule of thumb is that if your invention can be easily reversed engineered then you should get a patent, if it makes economic sense to do so.