Re: [dvd-discuss] Bunner wins DeCSS trade secret appeal

["Michael A Rolenz" <Michael.A.Rolenz(at)aero.org>]

Yes. And that's the whole point of patent law. You want protection. You 
disclose and the government gives it to you. You don't want to disclose. 
You have no protection under the law and it's up to you to protect it. The 
whole notion that the government should protect the private dealings of 
people contradicts that fundamental principle. The proper place for trade 
secret theft is the civil courtrooms with monetary damages and/or 
injunctions. Furthermore, when somebody alleges that a trade secret was 
stolen it should be up to them to provide ANY proof before ANY actions are 
taken and not just walk up infront of a judge and say "they stole my trade 
secret because they know what it is". PROVE it. But what is a trade secret 
must truly be one.  As I recall Frank Stevenson did the analysis of CSS in 
a few evenings. CSS is too trivial to qualify for trade secret since the 
only merit it possesses as a trade secret is the SECRECY of it.




Bryan Taylor <bryan_w_taylor@yahoo.com>
Sent by: owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
11/01/01 06:53 PM
Please respond to dvd-discuss

 
        To:     dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
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        Subject:        Re: [dvd-discuss] Bunner wins DeCSS trade secret appeal



It just occured to me that the dicta about object code is completely 
irrelevent
to a trade secret case. Once one link of the chain breaks, the whole case 
goes
with it. Once the source code is published, there's no way to claim that 
DeCSS
in object code form from that source code misappropriates trade secrets,
because there aren't any around any more.

In other words, when one person has the source code and didn't 
misappropriate
it, neither the act of compiling it, nor the act of distributing the 
resulting
object code RESTORES trade secret status.


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