(1) All intellectual property including any patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and privately held financial information developed by an individual or business shall not be publicly disclosed by department employees.

(2) Unless otherwise required by law, information submitted to department employees by an individual or business will be treated as confidential except the following:

(a) name and address of entity;

(b) short description of proposed agricultural development project;

(c) the dollar amount of funding assistance being requested;

(d) the program(s) under which the entity is seeking information or assistance; and

(e) any other information in which the demand of individual privacy clearly exceeds the merits of public disclosure when the entity has waived its right to privacy.

(3) This rule is based on the department's finding that except for the information described in items (2) (a) through (e) , the demands of individual privacy clearly exceed the merits of public disclosure of the personal, financial, and business information that is provided to department employees while executing the agriculture marketing and business development duties assigned to the department.