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Allowing a provision under Toxic Chemical Substances Act to remain intact, allows manufacturers to use a generic name when publicly disclosing an industrial chemical they produce rather than the scientific name that is submitted to EPA (thereby protecting its IP, as the name would disclose the compounds involved to make it).
This strikes the desired balance between maintaining public confidence in the safety of industrial chemicals, while giving manufacturers the incentive to create newer and greener chemicals without divulging the scientific names for the chemicals to submit to the EPA. This issue is something to be considered in confidentiality agreements as well. If the name of the product exposes information as to its makeup, care should be taken when drafting the ownership of confidential information clause and definition of “confidential information” section in the agreements to use a generic name in reference to the specific product.
Take away:
- By using a generic name to divulge a product to the public, instead of using the scientific or specific name, it may strike a balance between protecting your company’s intellectual property while appeasing any requests for information by the public or investigative agency.