The English Common Law originally provided only for the intellectual property right of the trade secret. No other intellectual property rights, including copyright, were available. Further, the only limited protection one had of a trade secret was simply how well one kept the secret. If one’s secret remedy to treat plague somehow became public (unfortunately, there was no such secret), then others could use the formula without compensation. Only if, in the rarest of circumstances, one could prove that the secret was wrongfully taken (say, from a disloyal apprentice) could the court provide a remedy. Today, in the United States, use of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act gives protections to a trade secret, but reverse engineering is allowed to lawfully obtain the secret. Does this make sense? If I am an expert chemist who has reversed the ingredients and portions of Coca-Cola, why am I allowed to sell the product, but not to call it Coca-Cola?