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>If a company feels the need to reveal their trade secrets in court to make their case, but ultimately wants to maintain protection over the trade secret itself

>If a company feels the need to reveal their trade secrets in court to make their case, but ultimately wants to maintain protection over the trade secret itself, what option would you provide them? I wouldn't give them any options, as they are on trial for a reason. Corporate America can't have its cake and eat it too. Google is a multi-trillion dollar publicly traded corporation, they have significant cultural, political, technological and economic power. They are in court due to abuse of one (or more?) of those powers. Part of the trade off of making your C-Suite, founders, and major shareholders multi-billionaires via public markets is that you have to be accountable to the public. If you're being sued for abuse of power, you can't just tell the judge "shhh, it's a trade secret, it can't be mentioned in public court, let's keep it so secret that most people don't even know we're in court, much less why we're in court" and expect to get away with it. Or, maybe you can....which is equally if not more disturbing in a democratic society. We're not China. If you're a mom-and-pop startup or small firm, sure, revealing trade secrets might spell doom for you. But you're not Google. I understand why it's not good to have to reveal trade secrets. But if that trade secret has landed you in court, you need to be accountable to the people that utilize your products, own your stock, do business with you, etc... Granted, if there is a legitimate national security concern here, I understand the need for secrecy. But I highly doubt there's technology in this case that would rip a massive hole in our national security readiness or long term technology strategy.

shadowgovt 3y ago
> I wouldn't give them any options, as they are on trial for a reason > They are in court due to abuse of one (or more?) of those powers. "If he weren't a drug dealer, why did the cops arrest him?" Even the corporations have a right to a fair trial. Innocent-until-proven-guilty applies to them too.
- NickC25 3y ago
  >"If he weren't a drug dealer, why did the cops arrest him?" Because he's been caught several times using drugs out in the open, has been caught numerous times selling drugs, and his linkedin profile says he's an "alternative medicine distributor" and formerly a "streets pharmacist". If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, has ducklings, and swims in the water, it's clearly a moose, or a t-rex, right? Let's be crystal clear here. Google has most likely broken a number of antitrust laws. That is why they are on trial. Google has faced antitrust suits previously. >Even the corporations have a right to a fair trial. You're making my point for me, so thanks. Everyone is entitled to a fair, public trial decided upon by a jury of their peers. A corporation trying their damnedest to pretend that they aren't on trial and aren't in legal crosshairs, while also saying "oh no you can't disclose any evidence it's all trade secrets and will cause harm to our corporation and our shareholders" Yeah, no. They have the right to a fair and public trial. That's it. If they didn't want to have to tell the world about what they are doing, they could have pursued a whole bunch of avenues to prevent disclosure of it WAY before it got to this point. Alternatively, they could have just not gone and done the actions that caused the government to bring the lawsuit. It's not like shareholders got together and said "Hey Google, you MUST do actions X, Y, and Z, even though we know they will trigger an antitrust suit that you most likely will lose, or else we will fire your whole board". That didn't happen either. EDIT: Should also disclose that within the last 6 months, I held Google stock and LEAP options. I no longer hold positions in Google, although I still am a paid user of multiple of Google's services, including Gmail, Google Workspace for Business, and Youtube TV.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    > If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, has ducklings, and swims in the water, it's clearly a moose, or a t-rex, right? (a) we have a whole legal philosophy based around "If we're gonna deprive it of duck-related rights, we'd better make damn sure it isn't a t-rex or a moose." (b) remember, what these rules protect us from is the government having arbitrary power to jail people by calling us ducks. > Everyone is entitled to a fair, public trial decided upon by a jury of their peers Who owns the right there? It's not the government; it's the plaintiff and defendant. If both concur on a non-public trial, the Constitution doesn't force the trial to be public. The right to a public trial is a waivable right. ... which is really the crux of the matter. The DOJ has a right to ask for a public trial here also; if it's not public, that implies they have not. They really should be the ones people are up in arms about if we think there's a public interest in publicizing the trial proceedings, as they represent the public in these proceedings. In this case, Google argues that the loss of trade secrets in the act of defending themselves constitutes irreparable harm, the court agrees, and the DOJ doesn't appear to have dissented. That's enough to settle the issue for this case. > Alternatively, they could have just not gone and done the actions that caused the government to bring the lawsuit You are, again, assuming the DOJ's case is legal truth before they've made it. The easiest way for a corporation to never open itself to lawsuit is to do nothing. Obviously, we don't want to incentivize that as the common outcome; we lose our whole economy if we do. So the law tries to find a balance. In the case of this antitrust suit, I think there's a good case to be made that the DOJ is trying to bend precedent to make something illegal that the law was not previously understood to make illegal; the idea that Google has a "search monopoly" is a very frog-boiling argument of reinterpretation of law over the history of the company. (If we're doing full disclosures: I do own Google stock still. I expect them to beat this lawsuit and then I'll cash out after the victory bubble).
- TheCoelacanth 3y ago
  Innocent until proven guilty does not apply in civil trials.
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    Even still, you can't use "They wouldn't be in this court if they hadn't done something wrong" as part of the evidence for the 'preponderance of evidence' standard.

shadowgovt 3y ago

> I wouldn't give them any options, as they are on trial for a reason > They are in court due to abuse of one (or more?) of those powers. "If he weren't a drug dealer, why did the cops arrest him?" Even the corporations have a right to a fair trial. Innocent-until-proven-guilty applies to them too.

NickC25 3y ago
>"If he weren't a drug dealer, why did the cops arrest him?" Because he's been caught several times using drugs out in the open, has been caught numerous times selling drugs, and his linkedin profile says he's an "alternative medicine distributor" and formerly a "streets pharmacist". If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, has ducklings, and swims in the water, it's clearly a moose, or a t-rex, right? Let's be crystal clear here. Google has most likely broken a number of antitrust laws. That is why they are on trial. Google has faced antitrust suits previously. >Even the corporations have a right to a fair trial. You're making my point for me, so thanks. Everyone is entitled to a fair, public trial decided upon by a jury of their peers. A corporation trying their damnedest to pretend that they aren't on trial and aren't in legal crosshairs, while also saying "oh no you can't disclose any evidence it's all trade secrets and will cause harm to our corporation and our shareholders" Yeah, no. They have the right to a fair and public trial. That's it. If they didn't want to have to tell the world about what they are doing, they could have pursued a whole bunch of avenues to prevent disclosure of it WAY before it got to this point. Alternatively, they could have just not gone and done the actions that caused the government to bring the lawsuit. It's not like shareholders got together and said "Hey Google, you MUST do actions X, Y, and Z, even though we know they will trigger an antitrust suit that you most likely will lose, or else we will fire your whole board". That didn't happen either. EDIT: Should also disclose that within the last 6 months, I held Google stock and LEAP options. I no longer hold positions in Google, although I still am a paid user of multiple of Google's services, including Gmail, Google Workspace for Business, and Youtube TV.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  > If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, has ducklings, and swims in the water, it's clearly a moose, or a t-rex, right? (a) we have a whole legal philosophy based around "If we're gonna deprive it of duck-related rights, we'd better make damn sure it isn't a t-rex or a moose." (b) remember, what these rules protect us from is the government having arbitrary power to jail people by calling us ducks. > Everyone is entitled to a fair, public trial decided upon by a jury of their peers Who owns the right there? It's not the government; it's the plaintiff and defendant. If both concur on a non-public trial, the Constitution doesn't force the trial to be public. The right to a public trial is a waivable right. ... which is really the crux of the matter. The DOJ has a right to ask for a public trial here also; if it's not public, that implies they have not. They really should be the ones people are up in arms about if we think there's a public interest in publicizing the trial proceedings, as they represent the public in these proceedings. In this case, Google argues that the loss of trade secrets in the act of defending themselves constitutes irreparable harm, the court agrees, and the DOJ doesn't appear to have dissented. That's enough to settle the issue for this case. > Alternatively, they could have just not gone and done the actions that caused the government to bring the lawsuit You are, again, assuming the DOJ's case is legal truth before they've made it. The easiest way for a corporation to never open itself to lawsuit is to do nothing. Obviously, we don't want to incentivize that as the common outcome; we lose our whole economy if we do. So the law tries to find a balance. In the case of this antitrust suit, I think there's a good case to be made that the DOJ is trying to bend precedent to make something illegal that the law was not previously understood to make illegal; the idea that Google has a "search monopoly" is a very frog-boiling argument of reinterpretation of law over the history of the company. (If we're doing full disclosures: I do own Google stock still. I expect them to beat this lawsuit and then I'll cash out after the victory bubble).
TheCoelacanth 3y ago
Innocent until proven guilty does not apply in civil trials.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  Even still, you can't use "They wouldn't be in this court if they hadn't done something wrong" as part of the evidence for the 'preponderance of evidence' standard.