Kenya has not enacted specific statutory legislation to protect trade secrets. However, Kenya is a party to the TRIPS Agreement which requires members to work towards protection of any undisclosed information. Kenyan law offers legal protection of trade secrets through common law under equity or on a contractual basis based on protection of confidentiality.

– Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, Stockholm Act, since June 14, 1965.
– WTO's TRIPS Agreement, since January 1, 1995.

Definition: there is no statutory definition of trade secrets in Kenya.

Assignment - licensing: possible through a licensing or an assignment agreement.

Remedies for misappropriation: the available remedies for trade secret infringement are injunctions against wrongful use or disclosure, or awarding damages to the wronged party.

Comments: Kenya should enact legislation governing trade secrets like other forms of intellectual property rights to clarify and fill in the existing gaps and to provide a coherent legal framework to guide the courts in interpreting legal matters concerning trade secrets. The challenges under the existing legal regime are that remedies granted for breach of contract in disclosing confidential information may not be sufficient to compensate the holders of the information. Moreover, trade secret holders may be required to disclose their trade secrets when prosecuting their claims of trade secret infringement in courts. Finally, the absence of clarity on position of trade secrets under Kenyan law leads to businesses to opt for the more onerous and longer process of patent registration which has statutory time limitations unlike trade secrets.