Case No. HC07C02914

“The learned Judge discussed with the Jury what constitutes a trade secret, but of course it is no good discussing what constitutes a trade secret if the person who is the owner of the particular thing which is claimed to be a trade secret has never made a secret of it. For instance, it is no use suggesting that Thoring’s machine was a trade secret if as a matter of fact Thorings had allowed people to inspect the machine during construction or had exhibited it at a trade exhibition or something of that kind. It is no use saying it is very valuable; it is no use saying it might have been a trade secret if I had locked it up and allowed nobody to have access to it, and allowed nobody except a particular man to know how it was constructed, and so forth. No evidence seems to have been given about it – well, I will not say no evidence seems to have been given about it but it seems to have been treated at the trial as though the machine was a trade secret of Thoring’s, and a question was put to the Jury, and the only question put to the Jury was on the footing apparently that it was a trade secret, and that in spite of the fact that the only man who knew anything really about it (Dosen) did say, and said more than once in his evidence, that it never was a secret, and that Thorings never treated it as a secret, and that it was quite open to everybody in the works to know exactly what it was and how it had been made, and the progress it was making and all the rest of it. It does seem to me, when one is considering what ought to be done in this case, one cannot overlook the fact that there was before the learned Judge, and there was before Counsel, evidence that this machine really – if the point had been properly investigated – turned out not to be a trade secret at all. However, that point apparently has never been decided.”