Trade Secrets and Labelling Hazardous Substances

In the absence of regulation, companies need to consider the extent to which label identification of contents would reveal valuable commercial secrets. Protection of these secrets involves different considerations depending upon whether hazardous labelling will be used within the trade secret owners workplace or outside of it. Since employees can be bound to keep such informa- 

As the law currently stands, employers have developed a variety of edtematives to placard and label notification. These alternatives serve a variety of purposes other than the protection of trade secrets. For instance, some employers believe that excessive labelling in the workplace can confuse workers, but nonetheless want to make information on hazards available. 

These alternatives nonetheless can also serve to simplify the protection of trade secret information. For example, lists of substances found in the workplace can be posted on bulletin boards with specific warnings as to the secret nature of the information. Some employers include this information in training booklets rather than posting them. In other cases, employers may label hazardous chemicals with coded information, the meaning of which can be made available to employees on request. These are only examples of alternatives that can simplify trade secret problems. No single approach is likely to be ideal for every workplace. 

Many companies have developed alternatives to OSHA Form 20 for general use. These alternative forms often provide for the exclusion of trade secret information, particularly of the chemical names and percentages of ingredients. Such forms generally provide the telephone number of a company official who can be called in the event of a medical emergency. Such information can be 

Turning to the law of trademarks, one comes to a very different set of concerns. When a new product is put on the market, companies very often want to give the product a distinctive name that will serve to distinguish their product from those of others. Both state and federal trademark law provide protection against the subsequent adoption by others of marks that are so similar that they will be likely to lead to confusion as to the source of sponsorship of the goods or services. 

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