Are there any 'Secret Arts' left in the World?

[Clarence01]

Familys or Guilds used to guard knowledge… but now in this so-called ‘Information Age’ information is hard to contain once the smallest leak is made.

Is there anything that has not been uncovered yet?

[Schnitte]

A lot of companies jealously guard trade secrets -these are either methods, processes, recipes, formulae or whatever which cannot be patented, or components of another patented investion which do not need to be disclosed when filing for the larger patent and are kept secret to provide additional protection on top of the patent. Whether this is what you would define as “secret art” depends on your understanding of that term.

[Jragon]

Plenty of stuff, but probably not much interesting. Certain magic tricks, the exact formulas or recipes for certain products or food. (Unpatentable) company trade secrets. Not to mention the specific techniques of several government or military programs.

Aside from that last one, you’re not going to find many powerful, interesting techniques that are closely guarded. Though there are some things that have been lost to antiquity like the exact composition of Greek Fire.

[drachillix]

Not so much a secret but a lost art.

Kiffa beads

There are tons of examples that have survived but per wikipedia:

With the passing of the last of the remaining traditional bead makers during the 1970s, the craft became extinct. Since the early 1990s, organized groups of women bead makers are again making Kiffa beads, using basically the same traditional methods. The craftsmanship of the new beads, however, has never reached the high standards and the quality that can be observed in the old beads

[Peter_Morris]

spying

[Chronos]

Very few trade secrets are actually unpatentable. For most of them, a deliberate choice was made to keep them as trade secrets instead of patenting them, either because a trade secret can theoretically be kept indefinitely, or for marketing purposes.

There are also some techniques where there’s some dispute whether they’re still known or not. Certain kosher butchering techniques, for instance, are believed lost by some Jewish sects, and believed to still be practiced by others.

[Donnerwetter]

Coca-Cola formula

[Shalmanese]

@Chronos

Very few trade secrets are actually unpatentable. For most of them, a deliberate choice was made to keep them as trade secrets instead of patenting them, either because a trade secret can theoretically be kept indefinitely, or for marketing purposes.

Patents need to be useful, novel and non-obvious and a lot of trade secrets would not clear this bar. All recipes, for example, are unpatentable. If I own a chocolate chip cookie factory, I could patent the use of a novel chemical to give certain structural qualities to my cookies but I couldn’t patent the exact proportion of flour/butter/eggs etc. that go into my cookies.

[Leo_Bloom]

@Chronos

…

There are also some techniques where there’s some dispute whether they’re still known or not. Certain kosher butchering techniques, for instance, are believed lost by some Jewish sects, and believed to still be practiced by others.

Cite?

/not a snarky “cite” but one of genuine interest

[Digital_is_the_new_Analog]

@Chronos

Very few trade secrets are actually unpatentable. For most of them, a deliberate choice was made to keep them as trade secrets instead of patenting them, either because a trade secret can theoretically be kept indefinitely, or for marketing purposes.

Or because they aren’t really defensible. I’m the author of a few trade secrets from one of my past companies. The company decided to declare them trade secrets instead of pursuing the patent because it was something used during the manufacturing process, and it would be extremely difficult to determine if any one else was doing it.

[Chronos]

Quoth Leo Bloom:

Cite?

/not a snarky “cite” but one of genuine interest

Hm, I might need to take that back. I was thinking of the approved process for removal of the sciatic nerve, but cursory research seems to show that the process is just considered inconvenient and impractical, not actually lost.

[Schnitte]

@Peter_Morris

spying

The products of a particular espionage activity are certainly secret, but I don’t think the techniques and methods of spying as such are a “secret art”. Even if the spying activities of a country’s intelligence agencies are not disclosed to the general public, in most cases you can be pretty sure that some other countries’ intelligence agencies have at least a rough understanding of what is going on and are involved in something very similar.

[P-man]

You mean the Coke formula and the KFC recipe aren’t secret? What about Cecil’s home address?