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Guided answer
Patent or trade secret?
One honest question decides most of this.
Split it deliberately.
This is usually the right answer and it is rarely the one chosen, because the decision gets made for the whole invention at once.
- Patent the visible parts - the device, the system, the observable method.
- Keep the invisible parts - the recipe, the parameters, the training data - as trade secrets.
- Be careful: a patent must disclose the best method known to the applicant, so you cannot patent the device while deliberately withholding what makes it work.
- Review the split when the product changes.
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This is educational guidance, not personalised legal advice. It cannot see your documents, your dates or the prior art, and those are usually what decide the answer. Use it to understand the question, then take advice on your own facts.
Not sure whether this applies to your invention?
The honest answer usually needs someone to look at your actual disclosure, your timeline and the prior art. That is a conversation, not an article.