What is a confidentiality Agreement?
A CDA is an agreement between the university and an outside entity (company, person)) this is used to facilitate discussions of information that is wished to remain out of the public. For companies, sharing of their business needs and development problems can lead towards developing solutions with university personnel, but would also want such needs and programs to not be known to their competitors. For universities, maintaining confidentiality can preserve rights (domestic and foreign) to inventions.