The United States Patent and Trademark Office defines a trade secret as
information that has three characteristics. The information:
1. has either actual or potential independent economic value by virtue
of not being generally known,
2. has value to others who cannot legitimately obtain the information,
and
3. is subject to reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy.
The purpose of this 1 hour course is to widen the professional engineer’s
understanding of engineering ethics through consideration of seven case studies
of the theft of trade secrets by engineers. The studies describe actual cases
that have been successfully prosecuted by agencies of the U.S. federal
government. The ethical—rather than legal— aspects of the cases are developed by
identifying specific passages in published Standards of Conduct for professional
engineers that were violated by the engineers who were found guilty of
theft.
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