The History of Trade Secrets

This country's economy thrives on its trade secrets and without them the economy would lack its competitive edge and economic value. The trade secret laws date back to Roman law which punished a person who forced another person to reveal secrets relating to his master’s commercial affairs. The current trade secret laws evolved in England during the Industrial Revolution and the first reported trade secret case in the United States was Vickery versus Welch in 1837. In 1979 the National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State Law imposed the Uniform Trade Secrets Act which has now been adopted by a majority of the states. In previous years these laws have been modified to meet the needs of our growing technological society by incorporating such things as the Invention and Nondisclosure Agreement and intellectual property laws. Trade secret laws protect a company’s information that is not publicly known therefore allowing a competitive and economic edge over their competition. Intellectual property violations fall under the trade secret laws which are used to determine if a company or individual has compromised any information of another company or individual. The issue of ownership of intellectual property is not only a legal issue but also an ethical issue that engineers face in their careers. In the case of Vermont Microsystems, Inc. (VMI) versus Autodesk, Inc. the court determined that Autodesk violated the trade secret laws despite the warnings by VMI. In doing this they not only compromised themselves legally and economically but also ethically. Otto Berkes developed a Display List Driver while working for VMI. After completing that project he took a position at Autodesk in the fall of 1991. At that time the president of VMI sent a letter to Autodesk warning that Autodesk should be careful because Berkes was privy to VMI’s trade secrets. However, in March of 1992, Berkes lobbied the management of Autodesk to include the display list driver in R12 windows....