In today’s world of free information, there are still people and companies that hold valuable pieces of information that are not freely available to the public. Even though science has advanced to a degree where a competitor company can just reverse engineer a product, some companies still hold their own by holding secrets that make them exclusive in the market. And they go to ridiculous extents to keep the secret a secret and have been successful at it since these secrets have not been revealed for decades.

The recipe of Coca-Cola

There was a time in the 1970s when the Indian government asked Coca-Cola to submit their list of ingredients so that they could open operations in the country.

Coco Cola refused and didn’t come for a long time until Indian government changed the rule.

Only two executives know the formula and it is very fiercely guarded by keeping it under lock in the Sun Trust Bank in Atlanta.

The classic trade secret case of Listerine – the mouthwash

How can a mouthwash so widely used, be a secret? It is, or at least, Pfizer thought so when it acquired its formula in 1880. For the next 70 years, it paid Dr. J.J. Lawrence, the inventor, royalty payments.

But in the middle, they go to know that the secret of this famous mouthwash is actually out there in the open.

So they sued the Lawerence family, but the court threw out the case, saying that the other companies acquired the formula by legal means.

So, technically, the mouthwash is still a secret, even though it isn’t.