How can I get a trade secret?
A trade secret does not require any type of formal registration, like a patent, or even have an optional federal registration scheme like copyrights and trademarks. This is largely because trade secrets are protected by state common law (law created by state courts, as opposed to laws created by state statutes). Thus, as long as the information you have created or gathered meets the basic trade secret requirements (it is secret, you work to keep it secret, and you gain some economic value from its secrecy), you are entitled to protection of that information as a trade secret.