Instructions:
You are required to provide a thread in response to the provided prompt for each forum.
Each thread must be at least 300 words and demonstrate course-related knowledge with
at least 3 references properly cited in current Bluebook format. Primary sources must be
used whenever possible and appropriately supplemented with high quality secondary
sources. The supporting sources must be course textbooks or found using the
LexisNexis Academic search engine which is available as part of the Liberty University
Online Library.
Topic:
What are the elements to qualify something as a trade secret? What are factors that a
court may use in determining whether something qualifies as a trade secret?
Furthermore, read Buffets, Inc. v. Klinke, found in the Reading & Study, and answer the
following questions:
1. What was the main issue in the case (hint: trade secret status)?
2. What rule did the court use?
3. What was the outcome?
4. What was the court’s rationale; i.e., why did the court find (or not find) that trade
secret status was proper (or improper)?
Running head: TRADE CONFIDENTIALITY 1
Trade Confidentiality
Institutional Affiliation
Date
TRADE CONFIDENTIALITY 2
Various elements qualify something as a trade secret; the level the information is recognized
outer a job; the point to which workers and others concerned in business know it; the extent
chosen by the owner to protect the information’s confidentiality; the information’s worth to the
owner and their competitors; the effort’s amount or cash spend by the owner in enhancing the
information; and the easiness or complexity through which the information could be efficiently
got or copied by other people.
A court may use these factors in choosing whether something quantifies to be a trade secret;
the information has to be commercially valuable as it is secret; be acknowledged solemnly to a
narrow cluster of people, and be subject to sensible stages decided by the correct information’s
owner to maintain it secret, including the utilization of confidentiality agreements for business
partners as well as workers (Hannah, 2005).
1. OCB (OLD Country Buffets) alleged that the Klinkes misused its recipes as well as its
occupation teaching manual, two of which it alleges are trade secrets to put up a buffet eatery.
2. The court used the RCW § 19. 108.010(4) rule, which describes a trade secret as
information involving a method, model, collection, plan, device, process, system or procedure
that: is efforts subject that is rational under situations and keeps its secrecy; and derives
autonomous financial worth, real or probable, from not being normally acknowledged to, and not
being gladly obtainable by correct ways by, additional people who can get financial worth from
its exposé or utilization (Claeys, 2011).
3. The district court ruled that the work manuals weren’t trade secrets because they were
never the rational hard work issue to keep their confidentiality.
4. The court settled Klinkes' proposal for review ruling on the Washington Consumer
Protection Act arguement, keeping that the assumed illegal behavior did not affect the civic
TRADE CONFIDENTIALITY 3
interest (Beckerman-Rodau, 2002). The court revealed that the moment Klinkes primarily set the
buffet eatery they utilized the imitated location handbook to coach their workers and the OCB
ingredients to set own delicacies.
TRADE CONFIDENTIALITY 4
References
Beckerman-Rodau, A. (2002). The choice between patent protection and trade secret protection:
a legal and business decision. J. Pat. & Trademark Off. Soc'y, 84, 371.
Claeys, E. R. (2011). Private Law Theory and Corrective Justice in Trade Secrecy. Journal of
Tort Law, 4(2).
Hannah, D. R. (2005). Should I keep a secret? The effects of trade secret protection procedures
on employees' obligations to protect trade secrets. Organization science, 16(1), 71-84.
