CompuServe Messages

Arnie, This is an area of the law which is in some state of flux. I suspect that viewpoint could claim the key numbers as trade secrets, which in most jurisdictions is defined as information which has economic value by virtue of not being generally known or readily ascertainable through proper means. If the key numbers were obtained improperly, I think viewpoint would have a strong case. Things get a little more complicated if the key numbers were derived through brute force. The recent Microsoft/Stack litigation has some application here. Microsoft prevailed on its trade secret counter- claims by arguing that it had prohibited disassembly or decompiling of its code in the license agreement pursuant to which Stack had obtained its copies of MS-DOS with the preloading feature claimed to be a trade secret. The restriction in the license agreement apparently was found to be a sufficient basis to hold reverse engineering of the preload feature to be a misappropriation of Microsoft's "trade secret." If viewpoint has similar restrictions in its license agreement that can be enforced, it might be able to pursue a trade secret claim against even people who derived the key numbers through brute force calculation and not direct theft. Darron