Comments on: Trade Secret in Scriptures

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:12:40 +0000

For comparative purposes: when the Church sued an absconding member for breach of confidence in England in the 1970s for publicly criticizing its teachings, the case was dismissed because not only was the Church’s claim that its tenets were scientifically provable false but the judge considered them “utterly absurd” – which equity does not protect: Church of Scientology of California v. Kaufman [1973] RPC 635.

By: Frank Pasquale

Frank Pasquale — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:27:55 +0000

Eric–thanks for including that–I want to do a little commentary on that case.

Siva–yes, the “secret knowledge” thing is a lot more widespread than I had thought! And the more I think about this case, the more I sympathize with the idea that maybe all the deliberations of those “at the top” of a religion needn’t be public…though I’ll always associate such arguments against transparency with the Cheney position against releasing the deliberations of his energy task force.

By: Siva Vaidhyanathan

Siva Vaidhyanathan — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:58:04 +0000

Hmmmmmm. The “spiritually immature” would include Scientologists.

Actually, “secret knowledge” and “sacred knowledge” play a large part in many world views and faiths. But it’s a long, complicated, story. There is much on this in the religious history and anthropology literature.

The Scientologists do themselves in, of course. Reserving knowledge to the elites is obviously meant to enable abuses of power, no matter the community in question.

By: Eric Goldman

Eric Goldman — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:59:09 +0000

Of course, the RTC’s trade secret claim were litigated in the series of RTC v. the Internet (Netcom, Lerma and FACTNet) cases from the mid-1990s. Eric.