What happens to Hydrodog's confidential information after the Franchise Agreement terminates or expires?
Hydrodog Franchise · 2025 FDDAnswer from 2025 FDD Document
The Operation Manual and other materials and information we may give you access to contain our confidential information that we treat as trade secrets. This information includes, but is not limited to, methods, formats, specifications, equipment, standards, procedures, sales and marketing techniques, knowledge of and experience in developing and operating HydroDog Businesses, knowledge of specifications for and suppliers of certain equipment, materials and supplies, and knowledge of the operating results and financial performance of HydroDog Businesses. You and your owners must not communicate or use our confidential information for the benefit of anyone else during the term of the Franchise Agreement. After the Franchise Agreement terminates or expires, you and your owners may no longer use the confidential information and must return it to us. We may require your employees, independent contractors or agents to sign a form of nondisclosure and non-competition agreement. We may regulate the form of agreement that you use and may require that we be made a third party beneficiary of that agreement with independent enforcement rights.
Source: Item 14 — PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS AND PROPRIETARY INFORMATION (FDD pages 33–34)
What This Means (2025 FDD)
According to Hydrodog's 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document, after the Franchise Agreement terminates or expires, franchisees and their owners may no longer use Hydrodog's confidential information and must return it to Hydrodog. This includes the Operations Manual and other materials and information that Hydrodog provides access to.
Hydrodog considers its confidential information to be trade secrets. This information includes, but is not limited to, methods, formats, specifications, equipment, standards, procedures, sales and marketing techniques, knowledge of and experience in developing and operating HydroDog Businesses, knowledge of specifications for and suppliers of certain equipment, materials and supplies, and knowledge of the operating results and financial performance of HydroDog Businesses.
Hydrodog may also require a franchisee's employees, independent contractors, or agents to sign a form of nondisclosure and non-competition agreement. Hydrodog may regulate the form of agreement that the franchisee uses and may require that Hydrodog be made a third-party beneficiary of that agreement with independent enforcement rights.