[hga]

The case you cited in your last link could have been decided after I read whatever it was I read. It could be that it's pretty hard to make and keep such lists as trade secrets, or maybe what I read referred to just a list of customers with all that other information, but I remember it being pretty definitive, and, generally agreeing with your initial points, startling.

[anseljh]

The law of customer lists being trade secrets is literally centuries old.

Perhaps you're remembering a recent case about whether LinkedIn contacts could qualify as trade secrets, which tested where to draw the line:

http://blogs.orrick.com/trade-secrets-watch/2014/10/27/new-s...

[sandworm101]

No. The tradition is old. The law has been revisited and updates many hundreds of time.

[anseljh]

Um. That "old" "tradition" is binding law until it's overruled. It hasn't been.

Again, here are the current California trade secrets statutes:

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xh...

[sandworm101]

Lol, accepting your 'tradition' argument (I don't) any such traditions would be overturned by the very statute you cite.

"3426.8.This title shall be applied and construed to effectuate its general purpose to make uniform the law with respect to the subject of this title among states enacting it."

That's the law. It overturns everything prior. All commonlaw interpretations (the closest legal thing to tradition) before it are void in the face of this new law.

Fyi. California's law is actual a cut-and-past of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act as adopted by basically every other state in the union. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Trade_Secrets_Act.

[anseljh]

I admit, my attention was divided earlier between Hacker News and my day job as a California IP litigator.

Here you go:

Yes, the UTSA statute is "the law". But it's not the ONLY law. Where there are gaps, courts look to case law, just like in any other area of law. And the UTSA was drafted with the old common law in mind, continuing much of it, but codifying it. That's why courts DO look at the older common law to inform their interpretations of the UTSA.

This is from page 1 of the Prefatory Note in the 1985 final draft of the UTSA:

"The Uniform Act codifies the basic principles of common law trade secret protection, preserving its essential distinctions from patent law."

With that, I'm done with this thread. We are way off-topic since the lawsuit in the original post doesn't even have a trade secret claim. I'm also done dispensing free legal advice for the night.