(2) Use of a trade secret without the consent of its owner when the use is contrary to a contractual obligation or fiduciary duty imposed on the user towards the owner of the secret;
(3) Receipt or use of a trade secret without the consent of its owner, when the recipient or user knows or is apparent to him, at the time of receipt or use, that the secret has been transferred to him in a manner prohibited by paragraphs (1) or (2) or that the secret has been transferred to any other person in such a prohibited manner before it reaches him."
- In addition, Section 7 of the Commercial Torts Law establishes a restriction to the prohibition that appears in Section 6:
- Limitations to Liability
(a) A person shall not be liable for theft of a trade secret, if one of the following exists:
(1) The knowledge inherent in the trade secret came to him during his work for the owner of the trade secret, and this knowledge became part of his general professional skills;
(2) The use of the trade secret is justified due to public policy.
(b) If a person makes use of the trade secret as stated in subsection (a)(2) and subsequently wins a benefit, the court may, if it deems it justified in the circumstances of the case, oblige him to return the benefit, in whole or in part, to the owner of the secret."
- The Honorable President of the National Labor Court at the time, Judge Adler, heard Labor Appeal 164/99 Fromer and Check Point v. Redgaard PDA 34 249 (hereinafter: "the Check Point Case") on the issue of what constitutes a trade secret:
"... We are dealing with a "trade secret", when it comes to information that is in the hands of the employer alone, is not in the public domain and cannot be easily discovered. This is usually information that is in the hands of a small part of the employer's employees, such as senior management or marketing department managers. You can discover a lot of information about a company through the modern means that exist today, such as the Internet. In addition, there is information that is distributed to all employees in the company. None of these are considered a "trade secret". Hence, information accessible to the public or a finished product sold to the general public does not fall within the scope of a "trade secret". It should be emphasized that the definition of a "trade secret" differs from industry to industry, taking into account the industrial context.