4 ms·
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.wikipedi
by 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 agoYes, 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 agoOr until a competitor takes it apart and copies it, or figures out how you did it themselves. Not much of a monopoly.
- hannasanarion 6y agoThat 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 agoBut independently coming up with something similar (or even identical) is perfectly legal with trade secrets. Not with patents.
- AstralStorm 6y agoAnd 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.