Novell Inc. v. Timpanogos Research Group Inc.
United States District Court for the District of Utah
1998 WL 177721, 46 U.S.P.Q.2d 1197 (1998)
- Written by Sean Carroll, JD
Facts
Merkey and Major (defendants) were scientists for Novell Inc. (plaintiff). As Novell employees, Merkey and Major were subject to various contracts prohibiting them from using Novell’s trade secrets if they left the company. Merkey and Major also agreed when they left Novell not to compete with Novell. While at Novell, Merkey and Major developed a new computer-software technology involving clustering. When it became clear that Novell was not going to use this new architecture in the way that Merkey and Major anticipated and wished, Merkey and Major created, with Novell’s blessing, a spinoff company, Timpanogos Research Group Inc. (TRG) (defendant). Part of the TRG agreement with Novell was that TRG would respect Novell’s intellectual property. While still a Novell employee, Merkey sent Microsoft a document that was essentially a copy of a document containing the architecture that Merkey had created at Novell. Merkey and Major met with Microsoft and presented the document as if it were TRG’s alone. Merkey and Major subsequently resigned from Novell and continued conversations with Microsoft, marketing the architecture for Microsoft’s use. Novell sued Merkey and Major for misappropriation of trade secrets and moved for a preliminary injunction.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Schofield, J.)
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