competitors. Antitrust complications might arise if you don’t bear the
financial risks of software development. If you do, however, you’re
within your rights to demand exclusivity, just as the consultant is
within his rights to charge you more for it. “Trade secret” is a key
phrase both here and on the issue of ownership. “I recommend to
clients that they go for trade-secret protection because copyright law
protects the information only in the way it’s presented,” says William
Wewer, a Washington lawyer who specializes, among other things, in
intellectual-property law. In other words, an unscrupulous consultant
might bypass the copyright law by using a different programming code
to duplicate your new software’s functions.