A month back, I was sitting in a review session for one of my last classes in university, going through some sample questions and thinking of possible answers. As this was my engineering ethics class, the topic of intellectual property came up. One of the questions was, "What determines how long a trade secret lasts?? Being the cheeky and tired person I was, I wrote down "The secrecy of the secret". I chuckled to myself, and continued taking notes. A week later, my friend asked me for a copy of my notes, so I scanned them over to him. A few minutes later, he laughed and inquired about my response to the question above. The best part is the fact this is the correct answer. Unlike other things such as patents, copyrights, and trademarks, trade secrets have no time limit. The only limiting factor to a trade secret is how good the employees are at keeping quiet about it. In fact, once the secret is out, anyone else can patent this secret for themselves. Despite how obvious the answer may be, it is almost ridiculous to state such a glaring fact. As for the product at hand today, I have another question for it: What makes a mousepad, a "gaming" mousepad? You could say something like, "It is great for games", or "It is good at holding mice", and while these answer the question, it is not exactly what I am looking for. Instead, this inquiry takes a bit more digging into. Hopefully I will make it a bit clearer as we look closer at the Fnatic Gear Focus G1 XL.