Imagine one fine morning you get up to discover that another company has started offering exactly the same product like yours as their own. Your business partners ask about it and employees look nervous. You are embarrassed.

How did this happen?

In hindsight it comes back to you. Your Business Development guru met with other company's sales team months ago while you were considering a co-development deal around this product.

Looking back, your company did sign an agreement but when you called your law firm now, it turns out that you inadvertently agreed that all the product and market information did not necessarily belong to your company, while the other company had 100% rights to whatever they wanted to do without your consent — in other words, the agreement had no protection for your business or Intellectual property.

Unfortunately, this also means that onus is now on you to prove that the product information was actually yours prior to the first meeting. This may even turn ugly, the other company can fabricate a lie and claim that you stole their information from them instead!

Didn't know how all this could happen? The truth is there was no protection at all for your IP in the agreement signed by your employee. It's all about overlooking a simple legal form that could have protected you.

Using the right confidentiality agreement for the right business protects the most vital asset you have in your trade - your Intellectual Property. If you would have used the right form from the Confidentiality Agreement set, your employee would not have signed an incomplete agreement in the first place itself and you would not have found yourself in this complex situation.

Be wise about when, how much and to whom you disclose confidential information. It goes without saying that you must build the protection in your confidentiality agreement to protect your IP from legal loopholes, otherwise your agreement is incomplete.

One way you can do this is by downloading a free legal form online. Convert the form into an editable format, you can enter the information that protects your IP now.

There are Confidentiality Agreement Forms, Free confidentiality agreements, Free samples of Confidentiality agreements, and many other Free Legal Forms available all over the web, all that you have to do is download.

You can convert downloaded form on internet, some sites offer After Sales Support services too, which is good because ever so often you may have a problem in downloading your form and you may prefer someone to help you. So make sure site you select has staff to help, although such sites may charge a small fee when you subscribe their online service, but few cents per page is a small amount if it can protect your IP. It truly takes so little to save so much.