Privileged information, Proprietary information and Patents.

-  Privileged information:

‘Information available only on the basis of special privilege’ such as granted to an employee working on a special assignment.

-  Proprietary information:

Information that a company owns or is the proprietor of.

This is primarily used in legal sense.

Also called Trade Secret. A trade secret can be virtually any type of information that  has not become public and which an employer has taken steps to keep secret.

-    Patents:

Differ from trade secrets.

Legally protect  specific   products  from being  manufactured  and  sold b y competitors without the express permission of the patent holder.

They have the drawback of being public and competitors may  easily work around them by creating alternate designs.