Re: Former employee use and modification

On 7/1/97, Val Dietrich <dietrich[_at_]earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Company is owner of a software program. It uses copyright and trade
> secret protection for the software. Software is licensed to a few
> customers a year and is customized for each customer. A former
> employee starts up a business of servicing Company's customers.
> Services include seting up the software for various modes of
> operation, modifying the source code of the data, and running the
> software to test set-up and modifications. Company's agreements
> with its customers extend rights to use and modify source - only
> to customer's employees (in rare instances, customer agreements
> provide contractors can work on the software if the contractor
> enters a seperate agreement with Company to do so). Former employee
> has not entered any agreement wich Company permitting such use or
> modification. Former employee actions include taking Company source
> code installed at Customer A and installing it at Customer B. What
> causes of action are supported by these facts? What additional facts
> should be looked for to support what other causes of action?
>

A strong statement of the company's rights to prevent testing, etc. by third parties can be found in MAI v. Peak Computing, 991 F.2d 511 (9th Cir. 1993). While this decision is controversial, if you are correct in stating that the ISO is copying code from one location and installing it at another, you probably have a strong case for liability.

Off-the-cuff responses to hypotheticals are not legal advice.

Mark Lemley
Assistant Professor, University of Texas School of Law Of Counsel, Fish & Richardson, P.C.
mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu

You can find a list of my articles and books, and information on how to obtain them, at http://www.law.utexas.edu/lemley/pubs.htm

For information on the Intellectual Property program at UT, see http://www.utexas.edu/law/intelprop/ Received on Thu Jul 03 1997 - 18:57:41 GMT