Imagine you have invented a secret sauce recipe that will make your burger chain world-famous. You do not want to patent it, as that would require disclosing all the ingredients. You choose to keep it a trade secret instead. But suddenly, a former head chef opens their own establishment featuring the exact same taste. How do you prove in court that you came up with this recipe three years ago, rather than stealing it from a colleague yesterday?
It is precisely to resolve such dilemmas that a large-scale reform of the Industrial Property Law was put forward for public consultation in Poland in the summer of 2026. One of the hottest topics among lawyers has been the idea of creating a repository of trade secrets at the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland.
The concept is as simple as a bank vault. Instead of hiding flash drives with drawings or documents in office drawers, a business will be able to officially “deposit” them with the state.
The Polish Patent Office will act as a blind guardian:
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It will not verify whether the uploaded information is truly top secret or whether it actually belongs to you.
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The Office will only assess whether the application is properly filled out, accept the files, “seal” them digitally, and issue an official certificate of recordal.
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The information will be kept secret for 5 years, with the possibility of annual renewal.
The main value of this tool lies in creating rock-solid evidence for future litigation. If a dispute arises, the court will be able to unseal the deposit, while your opponent will not even obtain access to it without your consent. This is an ideal way to establish priority in time: “Here is the file, held by a government agency since 2026; therefore, the recipe was mine long before the head chef resigned.”
Despite the obvious benefits, the Polish IP community remains somewhat skeptical due to massive blind spots in the reform text itself. Lawyers are raising logical questions to which the government currently has no answers:
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Will the fact of secret registration itself be public? The contents of the deposit are strictly confidential. But will a competitor be able to find out from public registries that your company has registered a secret under a certain number in the first place?
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How to remove someone else’s fake? What happens if an unfair competitor deposits your own open technologies, claiming them as their “secret”? Will third parties be able to demand the removal of such information from the database through the courts?
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What happens after the term expires? When the 5-year period lapses and the company does not renew the deposit, will the Patent Office destroy the files, retain them in its archives, or return them to the owner? If the archive accidentally discloses the secret, who will pay for it?
This summer reform promises to turn Poland’s patent market upside down altogether. In addition to the repository, the country plans to radically change the utility model protection system (switching to a fast registration system instead of lengthy examinations), introduce so-called “protective letters” (Schutzschriften) against patent trolls, and fully transition all communications between attorneys and the Patent Office into an electronic format.
Polish businesses will receive a powerful digital shield to protect their know-how—but only if the government listens to lawyers’ feedback and clearly defines the rules of the game by the end of the summer. The repository will help fix a date, but it cannot replace a company’s internal security: signing NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) and encrypting servers will still have to be handled by businesses themselves.
Founder of Research & Patent group Intectica, author of patent algorithms for solving problems in the pharmaceutical industry, patent attorney certified in all intellectual property objects (Patents, Design, TM), with education in chemistry and law, chief expert of the patent institution of Ukraine UKRPATENT (1997-2004). Member of international organizations, including ECTA, PTMG, UAM, lecturer and blogger.
