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Why is the government throwing people in jail for leaking trade secrets? Trade secrets aren't supposed to have government protection, that's the entire point:

Why is the government throwing people in jail for leaking trade secrets? Trade secrets aren't supposed to have government protection, that's the entire point: they're risky. If you want a monopoly on your technology, you're supposed to file a patent. Trade secrets were invented as a riskier way to extend your monopoly by giving up government protection. If the government is going to give trade secrets the same protection as patents (or even more, because patent infringement doesn't come with jail time), companies have zero motivation to publish.

xxpor 6y ago
No, patents cover someone even independently coming up with the same idea and making a copy. Trade secrets don't have that protection. You can still steal trade secrets. If you couldn't, you're basically arguing IP isn't property (which is a perfectly valid philosophical position, and one I'm sympathetic to)
- vlovich123 6y ago
  The problem is that it would break all employment as we know it. Now all I have to do is get hired on AdWords, steal the algorithm, & start a startup to undercut Google. I can price at a loss because I'm a small fish. Google can't because they've got monopoly concerns. Even outside of that extreme example, this would come up regularly for any pure technology startup looking to exit with an acquisition. That's not to say it's not necessarily a better system (no trade secrets - all innovation is public) but the monetization strategy to reward novel innovation is much less clear (you can only get so far on support contracts).
  - hannasanarion 6y ago
    That's what NDAs are for. Coke was able to protect their secret formula with NDAs and access restriction for over 100 years without any legal protection whatsoever. That's the gamble of trade secrets: no legal protection, but you can keep your monopoly as long as you can keep the secret. If you want the government to defend your monopoly, you have to file a public patent as a price of entry. The Industrial Espionage Act of 1996 upended that balance by legally protecting trade secrets. Now you can have a government-protected monopoly for all eternity, all you have to do is stick a "secret" label on your invention. Patents are entirely redundant in this new world of trade secret protection.
throwawaygh 6y ago
Stealing, not leaking. It’s not like he was a whistleblower or something. Should he go to jail? Idk. But if stealing food from a grocery store can put you in jail, then a ten/hundred millionaire stealing IP should as well.
- mayneack 6y ago
  Should he go to jail? Idk. But stealing food from a grocery store isn't perfectly analogous to stealing IP. Bringing his knowledge to uber doesn't mean google can't use it. The same is true for digital piracy. Maybe it should be illegal, but it's not exactly the same as stealing an object.
  - angry_octet 6y ago
    You can go to jail in the US for stealing stuff with almost no value. A pack of Tampax, a bottle of water, some expired food they were going to throw out -- it doesn't matter. Frankly he got off lightly. He was in a position of trust (and leadership) and he stole the crown jewels, and if he'd been successful it is very definitely eating Waymo's lunch. If he had violated the CFAA to steal the documents he'd be up for considerably more time.
  - bduerst 6y ago
    >Bringing his knowledge to uber doesn't mean google can't use it There were hundreds of engineers who worked on the technology that Levandowski stole. Let's not entertain this narrative that it's his work and talent alone.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > But stealing food from a grocery store isn't perfectly analogous to stealing IP. IP violations are usually more like trespass than theft, but trespass is a crime you can go to jail for, too.
    - hannasanarion 6y ago
      Not for any other IP violation. I could steal a Marvel movie and make millions of dollars illegally showing it in theaters, and I would only get fined. I could copy the formula of a patented drug and produce it illicitly, undercutting the patent owner, and I would only get fined. I could start a fast food business called "McDonalds" in blatant violation of a trademark, and I would only get fined. Trade secrets are the only intellectual property you can be thrown in prison for violating (and they are the only type of intellectual property that lets you keep an legally untouchable monopoly for all eternity).
Shorel 6y ago
The government has the freedom and jurisdiction to decide which resources are of such strategic importance as to give them extra protection. It's not about protecting one company over the other. It's about protecting an industry against other super powers.
CarelessExpert 6y ago
> Trade secrets were invented as a riskier way to extend your monopoly by giving up government protection. You're definitely mistaken on that point. Trade secrets enjoy protection in the law, both in the US and worldwide: https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/trade-secret-policy https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/trade-secret-policy > If the government is going to give trade secrets the same protection as patents (or even more, because patent infringement doesn't come with jail time), companies have zero motivation to publish. Despite both forms of IP enjoying legal protections, there are many reasons to prefer trade secrets over patents or vice versa. It's much much easier to accidentally lose trade secret protection by inadvertantly divulging those secrets, so in that sense patents are more "durable". You also can't use trade secret protections to prevent reverse engineering, so any invention that's easily observable and reversible is not suitable for trade secret protection. Trade secrets also can't be used to protect from independent invention, so if someone else discovers your trick, you have no recourse. Conversely, trade secrets apply to things that cannot traditionally be patented. The classic example is, of course, the recipe for coke, as recipes in general are not patentable subject matter Trade secrets also have no expiration date, hence again, Coke. Obviously this is a deep well and I've only just barely scratched the surface.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Trade secrets are subject to certain protections, such as protections against IP theft. It's perfectly fine for a competitor to independently reverse-engineer a trade secret from scratch.
  - CarelessExpert 6y ago
    Yup, I mentioned that specifically about half way down my comment. Tbf, I edited it a lot for a while there and added that later so you may have seen an earlier version. :)
- klipt 6y ago
  Pretty sure anyone could hire a few experts to duplicate the flavor of Coke exactly. Their moat is branding, partnerships and a huge distribution network, not some "secret recipe".
amznthrwaway 6y ago
Why aren't they throwing him in jail for much longer? 18 months is hardly a deterrent when the upside was an extremely good chance at generational wealth. He needs more than a 1.5 year vacation. He needs a real punishment.
newacct583 6y ago
Because it's a kind of fraud. If you cheat someone out of $1M by tricking them with a Nigerian Prince scam, you go to jail. If you cheat someone else out of $1M of profits by selling their trade secrets to a competitor, you should see a similar punishment, right?
- hannasanarion 6y ago
  Intellectual property isn't physical property. Google lost absolutely nothing in the exchange except the possibility of perpetual monopoly on this particular algorithm. Google still owns it, and they can still profit from it, the only difference is that they now have to actually compete.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    Stealing IP via piracy will put you in jail too, though. I'm not trying to make a case for whether or not trade secrets (or movie downloads or software) "should" be protectable via law. I'm stating bluntly that it is. And the reason is that it's fraud.
rockinghigh 6y ago
Theft of trade secrets became illegal with the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Espionage_Act_of_1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Espionage_Act_of_1996 18 U.S. Code § 1832. Theft of trade secrets https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1832 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1832
- hannasanarion 6y ago
  Yes, I'm saying that government protection of trade secrets is fucked up. It renders patents completely obsolete: all you have to do is slap a label of "secret" on anything you invent and now the government will protect your monopoly on it until the end of time.
  - johncolanduoni 6y ago
    Or until a competitor takes it apart and copies it, or figures out how you did it themselves. Not much of a monopoly.
    - hannasanarion 6y ago
      That works fine for physical machines, but if you're talking about software, then copyright protections, DMCA, and CFAA apply too, which makes reverse engineering also illegal.
      - lostcolony 6y ago
        But independently coming up with something similar (or even identical) is perfectly legal with trade secrets. Not with patents.
        AstralStorm 6y ago
        And you cannot make a trade secret or a trademark something that's visible and nonspecific, like say UI design or look of hardware, placement of buttons etc. But you can make a design patent. Patents make trade secrets stronger, especially if the patent is just part of the story.
gorgoiler 6y ago
In general, fraud is a criminal offense in most countries. This is rightly so. Defrauding others of possessions or money is sufficiently aberrant that any criminal justice system worth its salt should bring prosecution.
- hannasanarion 6y ago
  What was Google defrauded of? What have they lost because their secret got out? All they have lost is a monopoly on the technology that they were never legally entitled to in the first place. They still own all the assets, and their business is unchanged.
  - gorgoiler 6y ago
    One party wanted to keep something secret and another party connived and tricked the secret out of their vault. The nature of the secret has some relevance but it is not the important part. It’s the conniving and trickery — the fraud.
dayaz36 6y ago
This needs to be the top comment.
mdoms 6y ago
> Why is the government throwing people in jail for leaking trade secrets? > Trade secrets aren't supposed to have government protection, that's the entire point Is it your theory that the US government is illegally imprisoning Levandowkski? That's an explosive claim, what do you have to back it up?

xxpor 6y ago

No, patents cover someone even independently coming up with the same idea and making a copy. Trade secrets don't have that protection. You can still steal trade secrets. If you couldn't, you're basically arguing IP isn't property (which is a perfectly valid philosophical position, and one I'm sympathetic to)

vlovich123 6y ago
The problem is that it would break all employment as we know it. Now all I have to do is get hired on AdWords, steal the algorithm, & start a startup to undercut Google. I can price at a loss because I'm a small fish. Google can't because they've got monopoly concerns. Even outside of that extreme example, this would come up regularly for any pure technology startup looking to exit with an acquisition. That's not to say it's not necessarily a better system (no trade secrets - all innovation is public) but the monetization strategy to reward novel innovation is much less clear (you can only get so far on support contracts).
- hannasanarion 6y ago
  That's what NDAs are for. Coke was able to protect their secret formula with NDAs and access restriction for over 100 years without any legal protection whatsoever. That's the gamble of trade secrets: no legal protection, but you can keep your monopoly as long as you can keep the secret. If you want the government to defend your monopoly, you have to file a public patent as a price of entry. The Industrial Espionage Act of 1996 upended that balance by legally protecting trade secrets. Now you can have a government-protected monopoly for all eternity, all you have to do is stick a "secret" label on your invention. Patents are entirely redundant in this new world of trade secret protection.

throwawaygh 6y ago

Stealing, not leaking. It’s not like he was a whistleblower or something. Should he go to jail? Idk. But if stealing food from a grocery store can put you in jail, then a ten/hundred millionaire stealing IP should as well.

mayneack 6y ago
Should he go to jail? Idk. But stealing food from a grocery store isn't perfectly analogous to stealing IP. Bringing his knowledge to uber doesn't mean google can't use it. The same is true for digital piracy. Maybe it should be illegal, but it's not exactly the same as stealing an object.
- angry_octet 6y ago
  You can go to jail in the US for stealing stuff with almost no value. A pack of Tampax, a bottle of water, some expired food they were going to throw out -- it doesn't matter. Frankly he got off lightly. He was in a position of trust (and leadership) and he stole the crown jewels, and if he'd been successful it is very definitely eating Waymo's lunch. If he had violated the CFAA to steal the documents he'd be up for considerably more time.
- bduerst 6y ago
  >Bringing his knowledge to uber doesn't mean google can't use it There were hundreds of engineers who worked on the technology that Levandowski stole. Let's not entertain this narrative that it's his work and talent alone.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > But stealing food from a grocery store isn't perfectly analogous to stealing IP. IP violations are usually more like trespass than theft, but trespass is a crime you can go to jail for, too.
  - hannasanarion 6y ago
    Not for any other IP violation. I could steal a Marvel movie and make millions of dollars illegally showing it in theaters, and I would only get fined. I could copy the formula of a patented drug and produce it illicitly, undercutting the patent owner, and I would only get fined. I could start a fast food business called "McDonalds" in blatant violation of a trademark, and I would only get fined. Trade secrets are the only intellectual property you can be thrown in prison for violating (and they are the only type of intellectual property that lets you keep an legally untouchable monopoly for all eternity).

Shorel 6y ago

The government has the freedom and jurisdiction to decide which resources are of such strategic importance as to give them extra protection. It's not about protecting one company over the other. It's about protecting an industry against other super powers.

CarelessExpert 6y ago

> Trade secrets were invented as a riskier way to extend your monopoly by giving up government protection. You're definitely mistaken on that point. Trade secrets enjoy protection in the law, both in the US and worldwide: https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/trade-secret-policy https://www.uspto.gov/ip-policy/trade-secret-policy > If the government is going to give trade secrets the same protection as patents (or even more, because patent infringement doesn't come with jail time), companies have zero motivation to publish. Despite both forms of IP enjoying legal protections, there are many reasons to prefer trade secrets over patents or vice versa. It's much much easier to accidentally lose trade secret protection by inadvertantly divulging those secrets, so in that sense patents are more "durable". You also can't use trade secret protections to prevent reverse engineering, so any invention that's easily observable and reversible is not suitable for trade secret protection. Trade secrets also can't be used to protect from independent invention, so if someone else discovers your trick, you have no recourse. Conversely, trade secrets apply to things that cannot traditionally be patented. The classic example is, of course, the recipe for coke, as recipes in general are not patentable subject matter Trade secrets also have no expiration date, hence again, Coke. Obviously this is a deep well and I've only just barely scratched the surface.

gamblor956 6y ago
Trade secrets are subject to certain protections, such as protections against IP theft. It's perfectly fine for a competitor to independently reverse-engineer a trade secret from scratch.
- CarelessExpert 6y ago
  Yup, I mentioned that specifically about half way down my comment. Tbf, I edited it a lot for a while there and added that later so you may have seen an earlier version. :)
klipt 6y ago
Pretty sure anyone could hire a few experts to duplicate the flavor of Coke exactly. Their moat is branding, partnerships and a huge distribution network, not some "secret recipe".

amznthrwaway 6y ago

Why aren't they throwing him in jail for much longer? 18 months is hardly a deterrent when the upside was an extremely good chance at generational wealth. He needs more than a 1.5 year vacation. He needs a real punishment.

newacct583 6y ago

Because it's a kind of fraud. If you cheat someone out of $1M by tricking them with a Nigerian Prince scam, you go to jail. If you cheat someone else out of $1M of profits by selling their trade secrets to a competitor, you should see a similar punishment, right?

hannasanarion 6y ago
Intellectual property isn't physical property. Google lost absolutely nothing in the exchange except the possibility of perpetual monopoly on this particular algorithm. Google still owns it, and they can still profit from it, the only difference is that they now have to actually compete.
- newacct583 6y ago
  Stealing IP via piracy will put you in jail too, though. I'm not trying to make a case for whether or not trade secrets (or movie downloads or software) "should" be protectable via law. I'm stating bluntly that it is. And the reason is that it's fraud.

rockinghigh 6y ago

Theft of trade secrets became illegal with the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Espionage_Act_of_1996 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Espionage_Act_of_1996 18 U.S. Code § 1832. Theft of trade secrets https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1832 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1832

hannasanarion 6y ago
Yes, I'm saying that government protection of trade secrets is fucked up. It renders patents completely obsolete: all you have to do is slap a label of "secret" on anything you invent and now the government will protect your monopoly on it until the end of time.
- johncolanduoni 6y ago
  Or until a competitor takes it apart and copies it, or figures out how you did it themselves. Not much of a monopoly.
  - hannasanarion 6y ago
    That works fine for physical machines, but if you're talking about software, then copyright protections, DMCA, and CFAA apply too, which makes reverse engineering also illegal.
    - lostcolony 6y ago
      But independently coming up with something similar (or even identical) is perfectly legal with trade secrets. Not with patents.
      - AstralStorm 6y ago
        And you cannot make a trade secret or a trademark something that's visible and nonspecific, like say UI design or look of hardware, placement of buttons etc. But you can make a design patent. Patents make trade secrets stronger, especially if the patent is just part of the story.

gorgoiler 6y ago

In general, fraud is a criminal offense in most countries. This is rightly so. Defrauding others of possessions or money is sufficiently aberrant that any criminal justice system worth its salt should bring prosecution.

hannasanarion 6y ago
What was Google defrauded of? What have they lost because their secret got out? All they have lost is a monopoly on the technology that they were never legally entitled to in the first place. They still own all the assets, and their business is unchanged.
- gorgoiler 6y ago
  One party wanted to keep something secret and another party connived and tricked the secret out of their vault. The nature of the secret has some relevance but it is not the important part. It’s the conniving and trickery — the fraud.

dayaz36 6y ago

This needs to be the top comment.

mdoms 6y ago

> Why is the government throwing people in jail for leaking trade secrets? > Trade secrets aren't supposed to have government protection, that's the entire point Is it your theory that the US government is illegally imprisoning Levandowkski? That's an explosive claim, what do you have to back it up?