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Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!mips!mips!nec-gw!nec-tyo!wnoc-tyo-news!cs.titech!titccy.cc.titech!necom830!mohta From: mohta@necom830.cc.titech.ac.jp (Masataka Ohta) Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.unix.bsd Subject: Re: 'Busted Trade Secrets' vs. Copyright on Unpublished Works Message-ID: <1863@titccy.cc.titech.ac.jp> Date: 11 Aug 92 13:17:54 GMT References: <l8768cINN3cj@neuro.usc.edu> Sender: news@titccy.cc.titech.ac.jp Followup-To: alt.suit.att-bsdi Organization: Tokyo Institute of Technology Lines: 18 In article <l8768cINN3cj@neuro.usc.edu> merlin@neuro.usc.edu (merlin) writes: >My guess is that 'trade secret' protection exists pretty much in contract >law -- AT&T/USL has no binding contract with 100,000+ people who received >copied of UC Regents 4.3BSD-NET2 -- therefore AT&T/USL can no longer claim >any trade secrets continue to exist in the 4.3BSD-NET2 material. It seems >to me AT&T/USL will not have to rely exclusively on copyright (which will >only protect a particular form of expression -- but cannot prevent anyone >from using previously secret 'methods and techniques' as long as they are >embodied in a new form of expression). My memory is faint, but, isn't there a book containing all source code of V6 kernel published in public by accident in Australia in 1970s? If so, as 32V is similar to V6, I think very few can be claimed to be trade secrets of 32V. Masataka Ohta