Confidential information includes any information which is not publicly known. It can concern technology, business, finance, transaction or other affairs of a company. It includes information which is commercially valuable such as trade secrets or business information, as well as personal information. Examples of confidential information include but are not limited to: any document, discovery, invention, improvement, patent specification, formulations, plans, ideas, books, accounts, data, reports, drafts of documents of all kinds, correspondence, client information, lists and files, decisions, information about employees, strategies, drawings, recommendations, designs, office precedents, policies and procedures, budget and financial information in any form, i.e. physical, electronic, electromagnetic or otherwise Confidential information to do with unpublished inventions can be particularly sensitive. Disclosure of an invention before a patent application is filed will cause irreversible loss of intellectual property rights to the owner of the invention. Even after a patent application is filed, care must be taken not to disclose improvements to the invention. Trade secret protection will also be lost through open disclosure of the secret.