Protecting your business's trade secrets, client lists, business strategy, intellectual property and operations is essential in buidling a successful company. One of the most important pieces to accomplish this is the Confidentiality Agreement. These agreements are used when one party is disclosing information to another for the purpose of employment, a joint venture, or a possible sale of the company.

When creating your Confidentiality Agreement, it important that you include the following:

• Limited Duration - typically, for a Confidentiality Agreement to be considered enforceable their must be reasonable limits for how long the disclosed information must remain secret. Although some Confidentiality Agreements will include enforcement provisions that continue on in perpetuity, the majority will expire within 2 to 5 years.
• Description of the Confidential Information - for purposes of both communicating to the receiving party and enforcement, a description of the type of information that is considered "confidential" or "proprietary" is essential. A good practice includes labeling any distributed materials that include proprietary information as "confidential."