Running a Competitive Intelligence Programme: A Practitioner's Guide to Lawful Collection, Reverse Engineering Records, Hiring Controls, and Contamination Response
By Casey Scott McKay ·
A working guide to designing, governing, and defending a competitive intelligence function. It opens with the framing that resolves most questions: the law regulates the route, not the knowledge. It then builds the programme in order, covering the source register, the reverse engineering protocol and its records, hiring and onboarding controls, and the contamination response that must be rehearsed rather than merely written. Later steps address clean rooms, the competition-law review point, the constraints on using what has been learned, and the defensive mirror image every collector needs. It closes with three worked engagements, a list of common failures, and what a defensible file actually contains.
IP and Technology > Trade Secrets | Guide | Published 2 June 2025 - Updated 19 August 2025 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
The framing that saves the engagement
Clients arrive asking whether they are allowed to know something. That is the wrong question and answering it directly produces bad advice.
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