Computer students who watched their teachers go out on strike were amazed when they heard about the difficult logistics required in such an operation. Two students spent two nights and two days developing a program to organize a strike and picket line. It included such variables as legal requirements, number of sites, number of picketers, communications network, shifts, and media contacts. The students called their program "Picket Program." The students took their package-program and manual-to a computer developer/publisher, Mr. Lacs, to discuss the feasibility of marketing it. Lacs said that it was feasible. However, negotiations, which stretched over two weeks, broke down when Lacs rejected the terms in the students' licensing agreement. Three months later, the students learned that Lacs had developed and published a program called "Picketers' Path" based on their ideas, with a manual that they recognized as their own. On these facts, which of the following is true?
◦ The students cannot protect the computer program under the law of trade secrets because all of the information it contained could be obtained by others (e.g., the law from the library, the necessities of picketers from observation or unions).
◦ The students' manual was not protected by copyright, because they had not yet applied for protection under the Copyright Act.
◦ The students could sue for breach of trade secret law if they can show it was apparent in the circumstances that Lacs was being trusted with confidential information.
◦ Because no non-disclosure agreement was signed by Lacs, he cannot be sued for misuse of a trade secret.
◦ With regard to the computer program, Lacs could not be sued for misuse of a trade secret because the students only told him their idea and ideas cannot be protected by trade secret law.
Students
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