A Confidentiality Agreement is an agreement under which a party ("Recipient") agrees to maintain confidentiality regarding proprietary information ( "Confidential Information") that it receives from another party ("Information Owner"). This type of agreement may be useful in a variety of circumstances. For example, two companies might choose to share information for the purpose of determining whether the company with marketing expertise could help a manufacturing company better market its products. In such a situation, the manufacturing company would probably be sharing product and customer information with the marketing company and would want to protect this information from disclosure by the marketing company to third parties. The Confidentiality Agreement should state the relationship between the parties. For example, "the Information Owner is engaged in the business of manufacturing computer widgets. Recipient is a marketing firm that specializes in marketing computer products. Information will be disclosed to Recipient to enable the parties to determine whether Recipient could assist Information Owner with the development of a marketing plan." The Confidentiality Agreement should be signed by both parties and becomes effective as of the date specified in the Agreement. |