When choosing an intellectual property strategy, under what specific business condition is relying on 'trade secrets' superior to filing for a patent?

Relying on a trade secret is superior to filing for a patent when the invention cannot be easily reverse-engineered and the owner prefers perpetual protection over the limited duration of patent rights. A patent is a legal monopoly granted by the government that allows an inventor to exclude others from using an invention for a fixed period, typically twenty years, in exchange for publicly disclosing how the invention works. A trade secret consists of information that derives independent economic value from not being generally known o....