For firms in which research drives growth, nothing is more valuable than the knowledge they create—their intellectual property. The longer they keep their trade information secret from their competitors, the more money they make. This is why many companies require employees to sign noncompete contracts preventing them from jumping ship to work for a competitor, and it’s why they spend billions of dollars each year to keep their research and product designs from being stolen by computer network attacks, reverse engineering, and industrial espionage.