...| How to Protect Trade Secrets in the Workplace | Business Law Research Paper | Anthony Arrieta 11-27-2015 | Trade secrets First let’s address what a “trade secret” is. It is very hard to get an exact definition of what these are but trade secrets have characteristics which most state statutes or common law recognize. They are: * Secrecy * Security * The value of the Information, and * Ease of Duplication A customer list is a classic example of information that might be considered a trade secret. The list, by itself, would probably not be a protected trade secret. It could only be protected if the customer list is not “readily ascertainable” from sources outside the particular company. For example, a list of customers revealing their monthly purchases would more likely constitute a trade secret. The mere listing of customer names and addresses which could be obtained from a telephone book, would probably not constitute a protected trade secret. Protecting trade secrets in the workplace is a very important part of running a successful business. Keeping parts of your business secret will differentiate you from the rest of your competitors and if you are succeeding in the industry it will keep you at the top of the industry. Successful companies stay on the top because they protect their most valuable information. Companies like Coca-Cola have protected their “secret” formula for 125 years (Coca-Cola, 2015). This is not the only reason that...
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...What is a secret? A secret is something that is kept or meant to be kept unknown or unseen by others. Secrets can be a good thing or it can be a bad thing. Secrets should only be confided in someone you know and can trust.The secret I had , had the biggest impact on my life . It almost killed me. It was a cold rainy Friday night and all my friends were over. It was my famous sleepover that i had every three months . Everyone knows what goes on at sleepovers. We talk about boys , we share secrets , and watch scary movies! First we watch a couple of scary movies. Then we talked about boys and who we had crushes on . Finally it was time to share secrets! That was best part of the night! We all sat in a circle and started talking about our secrets. It was my friend, Crystal's turn . She had seem distant the whole night . It was almost like she was nervous about something and didn't want to talk. Before she told us her secret she made us promise not to tell anyone her secret so everyone promised. I was anxious to hear what her secret was because she like to keep secrets. She was scared to talk about it at first , but then she begin her story. Crystal's secret was that she killed her dad . I had a disturbed look on my face and my other friends were shocked. We asked her to go into detail and she told us how it happen . After she finished her story all of us looked puzzled. That night we decided to keep that secret between us . A few months later Crystal's and her...
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...have been argued by countless people for years. No one is able to provide a clear and correct answer. Assange and his Wikileaks have led us to the discussion of ethics. As far as I know, Wikileaks, whose purpose is to reveal secret information and news leaks, cannot be simply defined as completely ethical or unethical. The ethical standards on this issue will depend on the circumstances. We have the right and freedom to know and express, but we must be responsible to not cross the ethical line. In December 2006, 35-year-old Australian reporter, Julian Assange, led his team of journalists and hackers to establish a website named Wikileaks. This website defines...
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...Confidentiality after Tarasoft PSY / 305 June 30, 2014 Garen Weitman In life a person learns to keep secrets at a very young age. As a person grows up and becomes an adult we choose paths that require us to keep secrets from other individuals, when we do this it no longer is known as a secret it is called keeping things confidential. Merriam-Webster defines confidential as a secret or private, showing that you are saying something that is secret or private, and trusted with a secret or private information. (Merriam-webster, n.d.)A psychologist has a tremendous responsibility in keeping this confidential, it is what allows a client to be truthful and not worry about others knowing their secrets. However some secrets are not always meant to remain a secret, for example when it involves the endangerment of a person’s life. The story of Prosenjit Poddar and Tatiana Tarasoff is a perfect example. Prosenjit Poddar was being seen by a therapist by the name of Dr. Moore. One day Mr. Poddar informed his therapist he wanted to kill a woman upon her arrival from her vacation. Taking Poddar’s threat seriously Dr. Moore contacted his supervisor as well as the campus police. The police detained, questioned and then released him, determining that Prosenjit Poddar was rational and promised not to harm the woman. The woman later to be known as Tatiana Tarasoff returned from her vacation two month later, Poddar murdered her. Tarasoff family later sued Dr. Moore, Dr. Moore’s supervisor,...
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...(Put in ALL for a group submission) Q12147800 Faculty: Fci Level of study: 4 Course title: Public Relations and Communication Unit title: Interpersonal Communication Assignment title: Research Report Assignment tutor: Mark Farwell Word count: 2003 Learner request for feedback: I request for a positive feedback and positive mark of my work. :) TO BE COMPLETED BY STAFF Tutor feedback: Areas of Strength: Areas for Improvement: Grade mark: Submitted on time (Y/N): Tutor signature: Date: INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION - THE HUMAN PSYCHE AND BODY HIDES MANY SECRETS INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION: Communication with a people is a exchange useful or useless information between them. During conversation we can send or receive our message. In daily life people share knowledge, ideas, information but also feelings by using not only written or spoken words and thoughts but also body language. To be productive consumer you have to understand the emotions and indications behind the information that you exchanging in different situations with a different figures. TERMS OF REFERENCE: The purpose of this report is to analyses different behaviours within specific roles in group and self-disclosure in the closest environment – family. Self-disclosure results from interpersonal interaction rather than trait. Pearce & Sharp define...
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...spread during the enlightenment period. In fact, it reflects how the United States gained independence, as the American Colonies became conscious of the discrimination they faced within the British government. With the formation of the U.S. came the inclusion of new ideas within society, all with the intent to keep the American government fair and differential in comparison to the British Parliament and Crown. These ideas are clearly seen in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, which also provided Americans with the right to discuss the government’s mistreatment and the right to revolt if they found the government was acting against the population’s desires or best interests. As the...
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...Thinking on Moral Issues Abstract Many times in your life you will be faced with daily challenges and moral issues with family, friends and work. If someone told you a secret, for instance, would you promise to keep it safe, even if it meant endangering their life? Should we go against our own belief in our career and keep someone alive at all costs, no matter what their physical or mental condition is? I remember being a kid and running around telling secrets and when it got back to me it was blown way out of proportion. Those were the good days. We have grown up and things have changed but what hasn’t changed is we still have secrets in our life. There are so many reasons why we keep and pass around our secrets. Secrets can and usually do cause pain and suffering – that is why they are called secrets. One person most likely doesn’t want the secret out for one reason or another and then they allow someone close to them into their “trust field” and that person becomes vulnerable. Can you keep a secret? I will tell you the truth, I can’t. I am tell-a-phone, tell-a-graph, tell-a-Trina. If you want something to stay private … Do Not Tell Me! With my new leadership role, I had to learn to be more private. I already had several friends in the department and stepping into management was hard. I learned so much about many of my co-workers. Honoring trust didn’t require the...
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...safe from harm.” Now the question is, how do these words correlate? The answer is simple. If we did not have security, the idea of privacy would cease to exist. In the United States, we have the freedom to communicate freely, but if we wish to keep that freedom we must accept that the government may watch over us more closely from time to time. Regardless, I believe that the government respects us when it comes to our privacy. In an article posted on The Los Angeles Times website, columnist Andrew Liepman writes about the Snowden scandal and where he believes the government should draw the line between privacy and security. In May 2013, a former CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and NSA (National Security Agency) employee named Edward Snowden deliberately disclosed classified information involving the top-secret United States and British government surveillance programs to the media. Liepman, a former CIA officer and deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, makes it clear that anyone following the Snowden, “saga,” should be made aware of two very important things. One being that, “many things need to be kept secret in today’s dangerous world, the line between “secret” and “not secret” is fuzzy rather than stark, and if the goal is security, the harsh truth is that we should often err toward more secrets rather than fewer.” Two, the government goes to great lengths to keep the lives of American people private. It was quite easy to see which side the author was leaning...
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...Trade secret In regards of Schlossberger’s suggestion that the duty to respect trade secrets has limit and is overridden, it seem more emphasizing in whistle blowing aspect. So the question rises that under what conditions is whistle blowing moral justified? In my opinion, it does not matter what one’s obligations or confidentiality agreements, one is never exempt from the general obligations we have to our fellow human beings. One of the most fundamental of these obligations is not to cause harm to others. In particular, obligations of confidentiality and loyalty cannot take precedence over the fundamental duty to act in ways that prevent unnecessary harm to others. Agreements to keep something secret should have no moral standing unless that secret is morally justifiable itself. Such agreements should be morally void if the organization is engaged in illegal or immoral activities. In that case, one’s obligation to the public overrides one’s obligation to maintain secrecy. For example, one cannot have an obligation to keep secret a conspiracy to murder someone, because murder is an immoral act. It is for this reason also that employees have a legal obligation to report an employer who has committed or is about to commit a felony. For the same reason, an employee cannot justify participation in an illegal or immoral activity by arguing that one was merely following orders. Some people have argued that whistle blowing is never justified because employees have absolute obligations...
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...A friend, a friend is supposed to be someone who helps you, hangs with you, or someone that you can trust. My definition of a friend is a bit different, someone who loves my struggling, someone who is always busy, and someone who can’t keep a secret for the life of them. That is what my friends are like. Yes I said friends not friend. They barely hang with me outside of school. So I guess I should get this started because I’ve spent enough time explaining, now let's get on to more explaining. I’m gonna bring us to one week before Dead David Day in 2014. (Dead David Day is a holiday created by me and my friends.) I was at Cole's house, spending the night when I decided to tell him a secret. I soon regretted telling him the secret because again my friends can’t keep a secret at all. Now let's talk about December eighth the day that I realized I screwed up, the day that Dead David Day happened because I screwed up, basically what I’m trying to tell you is that I screwed up. It was cold that day on December eighth, there were leaves were falling off the trees. All the...
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...world are scurrying to pore over the once-secret documents for important revelations. WikiLeaks has been criticized before for revealing sensitive information. For example, the organization published thousands of reports about the Iraq War. Though much of the information was already known in broad terms, many of the specifics were not. WikiLeaks also released classified U.S. military footage from an attack in July 2007 in Baghdad by a U.S. helicopter that killed a dozen people including two journalists. For these leaks and others, many have praised the organization. But what are the ethics behind revealing secrets? Despite what conspiracy theorists may think, secrecy is not an inherently bad thing; in fact, it usually keeps us safe. We keep our bank accounts, ATM and Social Security numbers a secret because revealing them could put our finances at risk. We may choose to keep personal information from other people, not to be deceptive but simply because it’s none of their business. Similarly, revealing state secrets could put national security at risk or may just fall into the category of "too much information." But under what circumstances is revealing secrets ethical? If a close friend confides in you that she has a drug problem or suffered a miscarriage, is it ethical for you to announce that on Facebook? Just because it's true and others may be curious about it doesn't give you the ethical right to reveal it. In her book Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation...
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...January 24, 2012, she revealed that she had a secret information against Newt Gingrich that would keep him from becoming president. However, this appears to be counterproductive. If Newt Gingrich is the weakest GOP candidate, she should not reveal she has secret information against him, but instead hope that he becomes the nominee so that President Obama has the best chances of winning the election. One question...
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...HBS’s The Lego Group: Publish or Protect? Innovation and Intellectual Property Project 10.12.2014 Lego Group is the worlds’ fourth largest toy manufacturer. Their core product is a construction play design which allows for bricks to interlock together to design pre-designed or unique creations. In terms of volume and precision, the company relays on their core competence of “high volume precision molding” and has developed further strategies and technologies to ensure their growth and success in the area. The company is therefore faced with the difficulty in deciding how to protect this internal process and technology. Should this information be patented, kept as a trade secret, or published? This paper explores the options and proposes a possible solution for Lego Group, through careful research and analysis. Table of Contents 1 Introduction 2 Main Body 3. Conclusion 4 Bibliography Who is Lego Group? Lego Group was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kritiansen in Billund, Denmark. In the beginning Lego Group made wooden toys and later (1946) changed their production to plastic interlinking building bricks after purchasing their first Plastic Moulding Machine. Lego group states that the “brick is their most important product” and although they have continued their almost 100 year expansion their core product remains to be their brick. In 1958 their “stud-and tube” coupling system was...
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...EDWARD SNOWDEN TRAITOR OR HERO Regarding the Edward Snowden case there is a an very interesting ethical problem. Just to give us a bit of background context ; Edward Snowden was an employee of the CIA and NSA, who revealed details of several monitoring programs and American mass britanniques. For some peolpe he was considered like a hero because he has brought to light confidential information that deserves to be in the public domain and for other a villainous traitor because those put in danger his country, it is important to ask whether his revelations comes under the ethical or the legal fact. Ethical : We know that most people would feel betrayed by Edward because he released personal information about them but it was in order to prove that the US Government is recording the communications of its citizens. But it is Ethic to help other isn’t it ? Ethics are moral principles that guide the way a behaves. It issued by a business is a particular kind of policy statement. A code of ethic issued by a company is some kind of policy statement. A properly framed code is, in effect, a form of binding legislation within the company for its employees, specific sanctions for breaches of the code. If these sanctions are absent, the code is just a list of piety. The heaviest sentence usually dismissal unless a crime has been committed. Focusing on ethics, for those who feel that Snowden did was morally acceptable, calculating almost everyone has to weigh the benefits and...
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...over almost everything and they don’t put up with someone that can’t keep confidences. I would keep the confidence of my employers. Friends are important but your integrity is more important. Once you have been trusted and found to be trustworthy, you will be trusted with much more next time. When your superiors find out that someone tried to get something from you and you didn’t crack; their estimation of you climbs to a higher level. Your loyalty allows you to be entrusted with information and decision-making authority in your organization. Loyal people who can keep secrets become a hub within an organization. Perhaps more than anything else, the difference between keeping confidence and not keeping confidence is that those that are loyal become a hub in an organization, while those that aren’t loyal are avoided. A lack of loyalty shows self-serving characteristics that don’t help the organization and show that your loyalty is shown to be to yourself alone. Here are some of the things that one should consider when given the opportunity to keep confidences: 1. Stop asking others to keep secrets when you should keep them in the first place. If you have to say, “You can’t tell anyone about this” then it’s a good sign that you shouldn’t tell them that information in the first place. 2. Started saying “I trust your judgment with who should know this.” Instead of swearing people to secrecy. Over time you find...
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