Opinion ID: 151632
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Air Products and Inevitable Disclosure

Text: The parties disagree about the circumstances that must be found to exist before a court can enjoin a defendant from beginning new employment. In its opinion granting the preliminary injunction, the District Court stated: When analyzing threatened misappropriation of trade secrets, Pennsylvania courts apply the `inevitable disclosure doctrine.' That doctrine essentially posits that `a person may be enjoined from engaging in employment or certain aspects of his employment where that employment is likely to result in the disclosure of information, held secret by a former employer, of which the employee gained knowledge as a result of his former employment situation.['] The scope of the injunctive relief depends on the particular circumstances of the case. Bimbo Bakeries, 2010 WL 571774, at  (citing Victaulic Co. v. Tieman, 499 F.3d 227, 234 (3d Cir.2007) (omitting citations); Air Prods. & Chems., Inc. v. Johnson, 442 A.2d 1114, 1120 (Pa.Super.Ct.1982)). In other words, the District Court concluded, albeit somewhat paradoxically, that Pennsylvania courts apply the inevitable disclosure doctrine to grant injunctions based not on a trade secret's inevitable disclosure but on its likely disclosure. Cf. PepsiCo, Inc. v. Redmond, 54 F.3d 1262, 1269 (7th Cir.1995) ([a] plaintiff may prove a claim of trade secret misappropriation by demonstrating that defendant's new employment will inevitably lead him to rely on the plaintiff's trade secrets.) (emphasis added). While we agree with the District Court that Pennsylvania law empowers a court to enjoin the threatened disclosure of trade secrets without requiring a plaintiff to show that disclosure is inevitable, we do not consider that an injunction granted absent such a showing was issued pursuant to the inevitable disclosure doctrine. The leading Pennsylvania decision to discuss the inevitability of trade secret disclosure is Air Products & Chemicals, Inc. v. Johnson . [8] In that case Air Products, a manufacturer and distributor of industrial gas, sought an order enjoining Johnson, one of its former employees who primarily was responsible for selling on-site gas, from working in the on-site gas division of a competitor, Liquid Air, that lagged behind Air Products in the on-site gas market. [9] 442 A.2d at 1116-18. The trial court determined that Johnson, who had an engineering background, had acquired a number of technical and commercial trade secrets relevant to the operation and sale of on-site gas during his employment at Air Products, and that an injunction prohibiting Johnson from working in on-site sales at Liquid Air was necessary because [i]t would be impossible [for Johnson] to perform his managerial functions in on-site work without drawing on the knowledge he possesses of Air Product[s]'s confidential information. Id. at 1122 (quoting trial court opinion). On appeal, the Superior Court affirmed, agreeing with the trial court that Johnson possessed trade secrets belonging to Air Products that included technological innovations as well as commercial information such as the status of negotiations with customers, proposed plant configurations and methods of delivery as well as analysis of market opportunities. Id. at 1121 (quoting trial court opinion). In reaching this conclusion, the Court emphasized that trade secrets need not be technical in nature to be protected under Pennsylvania law. Id. at 1124 (citing Macbeth-Evans Glass Co. v. Schnelbach, 239 Pa. 76, 86 A. 688 (1913)). With respect to the probability of disclosure required to warrant an injunction, the Superior Court stated at the outset of its analysis that Pennsylvania law permits the issuance of an injunction where a defendant's new employment is likely to result in the disclosure of a former employer's trade secrets. Id. at 1120 (emphasis added). The Court then determined that it was reasonable for the trial court to issue an injunction based on the inevitability that Johnson would disclose trade secrets, but the Superior Court explicitly chose not [to] adopt the reasoning of the trial court or its use of the term inevitable. Id. at 1124. Based on these statements it seems clear that the Superior Court believed that the trial court permissibly could have granted the injunction even if the disclosure of trade secrets was not inevitable.