As with most legal hacks, the courts figured this one out long ago :).

If someone is trying to dig into their competitor's trade secrets via discovery, the court offers multiple ways to safeguard against that. The defendant can identify information as a trade secret and ask that it be protected in some way - for example, the documents may be restricted to "Attorneys' Eyes Only", so while the plaintiff's attorneys can review the material, the plaintiffs themselves are barred from reviewing it. Or the judge themselves may get involved in an in-camera session.

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Twirrim 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There are software engineers that specialise in source code analysis that lawyers will often use in these cases. The engineers will be given access to source code in secure environments where they're not allowed to bring any device in or out. They review, analyse, and write up a report using pen and paper, that can then be reviewed by the lawyers.

	▲	FireBeyond 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Absolutely. It was very similar to one of my first jobs: "Legal Technical Analyst". Not as much time doing deep source analysis, but basically translating things for lawyers: "So as far as this claim of copyright/plagiarism... this block here, that's CS 101 stuff, that block there, that's novel, and does x, y and z".

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franktankbank 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Sounds expensive. *(sleaze ball hands)*