Brief a Case
Case Title: Make's Scent Inc., Vs Dab-it-On, Inc.,
The Facts of the Case: The parties involved in this case are the Make's Scent inc., and its former employee and the Dab-it-on, Inc,. The case involves a former employee of Make's Scents Inc., who allegedly exposed the trade secrets of his previous employer to his new company Dab-it-on.
Proceedings of the case: In a similar case, the accused contended that a trade secret cannot be composed mainly of matters within the public domain. However, the court ruled out the reasoning holding that the fact that some or all of the components of the trade secrets are well-known does not disqualify the protection for a secret combination, collection, or incorporation of the individual fundamentals.
The Questions before the court: The court will establish whether Make's Scent Inc had measures in place to ensure its trade secret protection. Some of the necessary measures include giving oaths to employees so as to ensure that they do not release the enterprise's secrets to the competitors even after they cease working for the organization.
Holding: In a similar scenario, the court ruled that hiring workers from competitor's firms in order to get secret information from them was illegal.
Reasoning: By a simple act of rival firms acquiring trade secrets of their rivals kills the competitive advantage of the opponent firms in the market. Consequently, the business which illegally learns of the competitor's trade secrets employs them to imitate and overcome it in terms of performance and effectiveness. Additionally, exposing a company's trade secrets by its employees takes away the value of the money they spent in constructing the superior systems and can result in the collapse of the business.
Important Concurrence: All the Supreme Court judges agree to the fact that obtaining a competitor's trade secrets violates the trade laws. Therefore, Makes Scents, Inc. will be able to secure an injunction against both the former employee and Dab-it-On. The employee will be liable for abusing the pledge not to share his former employer's secrets. On the other hand, Dab-it-on will be liable for using its competitor's trade information without authority (Besen, & Raskind, 2009).
Dissenting: None of Importance.