Industrial espionage, also known as economic espionage, corporate spying, or corporate espionage, is a form of

espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering, as a subfield of the intelligence field, is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence). A person who commits espionage on a mission-specific contract is called an ...

conducted for

commercial Commercial may refer to: * (adjective for) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and services ** (adjective for) trade, the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information or money * a dose of advertising ...

purposes instead of purely

national security National security, or national defence (national defense in American English), is the security and Defence (military), defence of a sovereign state, including its Citizenship, citizens, economy, and institutions, which is regarded as a duty of ...

. While political espionage is conducted or orchestrated by

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

s and is international in scope, industrial or corporate espionage is more often national and occurs between companies or

corporation A corporation or body corporate is an individual or a group of people, such as an association or company, that has been authorized by the State (polity), state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law as ...

Forms of economic and industrial espionage

In short, the purpose of espionage is to gather knowledge about one or more organizations. Economic or industrial espionage takes place in two main forms. It may include the acquisition of

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

, such as information on industrial manufacture, ideas, techniques and processes, recipes and formulas. Or it could include sequestration of

proprietary {{Short pages monitor