[Commons-Law] RE: commons-law Digest, Vol 19, Issue 13

[sudhir at circuit.sarai.net]

Dear Thomas

The question was posed in terms of broad principle and I will reply in the
same tenor - in this area of IP law, more than many others, the factual
circumstances can have a huge impact. I want to supplemnet Sunita's
observations on all three points... so here it goes.

1. For something to be protected as confidential information it must
satisfy a few key criterion: it must be specific, non trivial information
that is not already in the public domain.[1999 FSR 235] This enquiry is
analogous to establishing that something is a copyright work - except that
the principles of law here are common law based. When these conditions are
satisfied then X may be said to have an 'interest' in the information.

2. The law of confidence generates obligations through the law of contract
as well as through trust like fiduciary relationships. Both of these are in
personam rights and NO in rem rights are involved. So in your example much
would turn on the circumstances in which X passes on the information to Y.

3. Legally one has TITLE only to property - it does sound odd to say that
one has TITLE to one's reputation - a personal interest protected by the
common law.

Hope that helps
Sudhir


On February 13, 7:10 am "Sunita Sreedharan" <sunita_sreedharan at hotmail.com>
wrote:
> Dear Thomas,
>
> On the premise that we are speaking of this situation in India,
> please note that trade secret is protected under common law.  Now for
> your questions:
> 1.  X has a right/interest in the process even if it is not patented;
> provided the said process is not already in public domain and X has
> not published the process for common consumption by way of seminar,
> article etc
> 2.  Yes, but in so far has X has taken due care to see that the
> process is kept a secret
>
> 3.  Yes, X has a title to it, if he can prove that he had taken due
> care to protect his trade secret; the said trade secret is not common
> knowledge or obvious to a person with reasonable skill; and that the
> said trade secret gives him competitive edge in the market.
>
> A good example is of course Coca Cola formula
>
> Signing off
>
> Sunita K. Sreedharan
>
> Hypothetical situation:
> X discovers a manufacturing process which he does not patent. The
> process is known only to him and remains a trade secret. He seeks to
> sell the know-how for this process to Y.
>
>
> 1) Does X have a right or interest in the process, although it was not
> patented?
> 2) Is there a right in rem against others using this process?
> 3) Most importantly, does X have TITLE to the trade secret?
>
>
> From: commons-law-request at sarai.net
> Reply-To: commons-law at sarai.net
> To: commons-law at sarai.net
> Subject: commons-law Digest, Vol 19, Issue 13
> Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 12:00:07 +0100 (CET)
>
> Send commons-law mailing list submissions to
>     commons-law at sarai.net
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>     https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>     commons-law-request at sarai.net
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
>     commons-law-owner at sarai.net
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of commons-law digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>     1. question on trade secrets (Thomas John)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 20:16:04 +0530
> From: Thomas John <aashish.thomas.john at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Commons-Law] question on trade secrets
> To: commons-law at sarai.net
> Message-ID: <9f871321050211064617af6952 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>
> This is a frustratingly simple-sounding IPR question that I
> desperately need an answer to but I can't seem to figure it out. Can
> anyone help me out on this?
>
> Thomas.
>
>
> ======
>
>
> Hypothetical situation:
> X discovers a manufacturing process which he does not patent. The
> process is known only to him and remains a trade secret. He seeks to
> sell the know-how for this process to Y.
>
>
> 1) Does X have a right or interest in the process, although it was not
> patented?
> 2) Is there a right in rem against others using this process?
> 3) Most importantly, does X have TITLE to the trade secret?
>
>
> ======
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> commons-law mailing list
> commons-law at sarai.net
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
>
>
> End of commons-law Digest, Vol 19, Issue 13
> *******************************************
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Manage information better. Optimise your tasks.
> http://www.microsoft.com/india/office/experience/  Experience MS
> Office System.
>
> _______________________________________________
> commons-law mailing list
> commons-law at sarai.net
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
>