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In a Trade Secret case, if the plaintiff makes a presentation that includes the proposed “Trade Secret” to a city government and the material is marked "Confidential" does that meet the standard of 3426.1(d)(2) "Is the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy"?or does the fact that the presentation is made to a public government agency defeat the effort to maintain secrecy?
Optional Information: State/Country relating to question: California Already Tried: Online research
What steps did you take not to have the trade secret information excluded from the materials that were avaialble to the public?
I am the defendant in the case. The presentation that the plaintiff made to the city includes the same material they are claiming is their trade secret. Our first argument is that what they state is not a trade secret and that there is not enough "reasonable particularity" to distinguish it from competitors in the market place. But my question here is about if they treated the information in a way to maintain their secret. There is no evidence of an NDA or similar document with the city.
If the data was in the publicly avaialble data, the general public would not be subject to any confidentiality obligation. Disclosing the infiormation in a public format would result in a loss of trade secret status.
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Is making a presentation to a public employee acting on behalf of the city a public format?
No. Even presentations to a public official if not made in circumstances which would make the infomation readily available to the public is not a public disclosure. The public official would be under a duty to either disclose to you that any information provided to him will be open to the publlic or maintain the confidentiality of the material. Most agencies have protocols for dealing with confidential information submitted in a bidding process. It is not that unusual.
Thanks, very helpful
Experience: 30 years of corporate, litigation and international law