What you should know about non-disclosure agreements
Simply put, a non-disclosure agreement or NDA is a contract written to protect a secret. You might have also heard a NDA being referred to as a Confidentiality Agreement. You’d typically use a NDA in a situation where you’re sharing something valuable about your business or business idea and want to protect it from potentially being poached.
Asking someone to sign a NDA can inspire all sorts of reactions. For example, if you rock up at an investor pitch asking everyone in the room to sign a NDA, you’ll likely to be laughed from the room. The general consensus is that ideas are cheap - it’s the execution that’s important. However, if you’ve written what promises to be the equivalent of the next Harry Potter series, you might want to take very serious legal steps to protect your content. Especially if you’re sharing it with people like, for example, a sub editor.
There’s a time and a place to use a NDA.
And ultimately, that’s your call to make.
Some questions to ask before you ask someone to sign a NDA:
Do you have something unique worth protecting? And can you define that unique something in very specific and technical terms?
Are you taking any other serious legal steps to protect your IP, technical knowhow, recipe, formulae, idea?
Is the information you’re asking to be protected by your NDA actually confidential? And can you prove that?
If someone breaches your NDA, are you going to be able to take legal action?
What is the length of time you need the NDA to be valid for?
Can you find a way to share the essence of your business without actually giving away your IP?
Do you actually own the IP you want protected by the NDA?