Understandably, vendors do not want to reveal proprietary secrets behind their technology nor should they be required to in most circumstances.

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While Romney may have dissembled about when he actually left Bain Capital, he has been disassociated with the firm long enough that he cannot argue that his tax returns will reveal proprietary secrets.

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Sergey Aleynikov is having his day in a Manhattan federal court to face charges of stealing trade secrets (namely proprietary computer trading code) from Goldman Sachs.

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Trade secrets also protects software source code and sometimes other aspects of software, such as proprietary limited-distribution documentation.

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