Re: Non-disclosure agreements

> > Why would a non-disclosure agreement dealing with public
> > information be invalid? Suppose A doesn't know but wants to
> > know the date of Lincoln's death, and B says: "I will tell you
> > the date right now, and save you the time of looking it up, but
> > only if you promise not to say anything about Lincoln's date of
> > death to anyone else."
> >
> > --Trotter Hardy
> >
> At least in the context of trade secret law the reason we would not
> enforce such an agreement is that it is in restraint of trade. If A
> can't get hired by the "history research group" because he is now
> under an agreement not to disclose a historical fact that is in the
> public domain, where are you. And if he does sign such an agreement,
> would it be a breach if he looked it up himself and then disclosed it?
> And do we gain anything by now making him look it up himself? And
> will we be able to tell whether he did so?
> Harvey Perlman

I don't question that your statement about what a court might do in such a case is correct. I was just wondering why such a contract OUGHT to be a "restraint of trade." It seems like that is the equivalent of saying that all contracts "restrain trade" and hence ought to be invalid. But after reading your message, I decided that maybe the reason has less to do with restraining anything (which all contracts do, by definition, since they limit one's freedom of action), and more to do with the practical difficulties of proving when there had been a breach, given that public information could be learned from a variety of sources besides the promissor.

        --Trotter Hardy

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