“A trade secret is pro­pri­etary but unpatented infor­ma­tion that con­fers a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage on its owner. If some­one imper­mis­si­bly uses a trade secret, the owner of the secret is enti­tled to a rem­edy that may include, in addi­tion to dam­ages, an injunc­tion that for­bids the unau­tho­rized user from man­u­fac­tur­ing a prod­uct that employs the owner’s secret. Courts dis­agree, how­ever, over whether such an injunc­tion should con­tinue after the trade secret becomes pub­lic knowledge—for exam­ple, through a patent appli­ca­tion or mar­ket­ing. Even when courts agree that the injunc­tion should con­tinue after the trade secret becomes pub­lic, they still dis­agree over whether the injunc­tion should be per­pet­ual or lim­ited in dura­tion. This arti­cle uses real option the­ory within a Schum­peter­ian frame­work of inno­va­tion and com­pe­ti­tion to clar­ify the con­flict regard­ing the proper dura­tion of an injunc­tion to rem­edy the unau­tho­rized use of trade secrets.…”