Apparently A man was arrested by the FBI for theft of corporate secrets, while attempting to fly to China.

Anyone know if LDS Inc has pursued criminal charges against anyone for divulging its trade secrets?

It is hard to believe more financial documents have not been leaked.

Link- https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Former-Apple-Employee-Charged-With-Stealing-Trade-Secrets-After-Arrest-at-San-Jose-Airport-487823141.html

I guess he’ll be late for work at his new job. I should revisit server compartmentalization.

I’m supposed to be in Satan’s power for revealing the secret handshakes. Probably why I started drinking coffee.

For a trade secret, you need to have trademark. I think they have copyright protections but not over temple movies, etc.

Or patent. All of which would void the sacredness of the templewording.

If you worked for McDonalds and then quit and went to work making Big Macs at Burger King, you would technically be in violation of trade secrets. Since the secret was out a long time ago, no one cares anymore and that trade secret wouldn't be enforcable. But unlike patents and copyrights, trade secrets are only enforced by the fact that the trade secret really is a secret. Only the company that owns the secret and their employees, knows what the secret is. Even the government doesn't know the secret.

The would-be secret behind patents and copyrights are filed with the Federal government so that they can enforce the company's rights as the owner of what was previously a secret. As soon as the secret is filed and goes on the public record, it stops being a secret. Any member of the public can go to the government to see what the secret is behind a patent or a copyright.

The temple secrets can't be enforced as trade secrets for the same reason that the way to cook a Big Mac is not a secret. In addition, unless you are a paid employee of the company who owns the secret and you knew about the secret as a part of your job, you are not capable of violating a trade secret, even if you know the secret and tell others about it. You have to have been paid to know the secret and agreed that you would keep the secret because you are being paid or were paid when you had your job. If the secret ever does get out, those who were previously bound to secracy are then released from their obligation to keep the secret.

Often, high tech companies use trade secrets instead of patents because their secret might never be disclosed and therefore the property rights to the secret might never expire. Also, you never have to disclose your secret to a competator if you keep it as a trade secret. Some secrets can not be reverse-engineered and no one ever discloses them to the public.

Temple ceremonies can't be patented because a ceremony is not an invention and serves no useful purpose that is recognized as having value, by the public. So all the church can do is to copyright the text of them. A trademark is only useful if you want to be known by those who recognize your exclusive mark. So the only intellectual property rights the church has are copyrights except maybe their logo is trademarked.

Here is an example of the value of a trade secret. Someone has a patent that allows him to make a specific widget at the cost of only a hundred dollars each. Without the secret behind the patent, it typically costs two hundred dollars to make the same widget. Competing companies read how the patent owner does it, and they eagerly await the expiration of the patent. Let's say that a trade secret owner can make the same widget at a cost of only fifty dollars each, and all they have to do is to swear their employees to secracy and hope no one discloses the secret anyway. If no one talks and no one outside of the company figures the trade secret out, the secret could last forever. That is why the guy in the article was arrested. They had to shut him up before he disclosed the secret. Otherwise, the competing company might patent the idea and all would be lost.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2018 01:18AM by azsteve.

Temple rituals may be considered secret/sacred in Mormondom, however, their use is a far extension of the LDS business model.

Far closer to the business model would be the correlated tithing rake sent to the home office, the secret plot to pressure elderly members to will their estates to the corporation, the whisper campaign to recruit salesmen/missionaries, the contents of the granite vault, political and media meddling to ensure a Utah LDS theocracy, the secret and invisible line between the for profit and charitable wings of LDS inc, and the stalking of members who no longer wish to be customers of the LDS business.