What to patent, what to keep as a trade secret

There are two paths to protect technology: patent it (disclose in exchange for a period of exclusivity), or keep it a trade secret (undisclosed, advantage maintained by secrecy). The wrong choice loses both.

Generally, technology easy to reverse-engineer or that must be shown externally suits patents; core processes hard to reverse and secretable long-term (such as formulas) suit trade secrets.

The pragmatic approach is to layer: patent what should be disclosed, build a confidentiality program for what should stay secret, and define ownership and secrecy duties across R&D and OEM chains.