A chain of stores and stands for the sale of tea drinks contracted with a company that operates stands for the sale of drinks and they formed a partnership to set up a stand in the mall. After the parties got into a dispute, an agreement was signed to dissolve the partnership, which the chain claims was breached by the company which set up additional stands to sell tea drinks while stealing the chain's trade secrets.
The Court held that the recipes of the drinks do not constitute a trade secret because they are considered knowledge that is in the public domain. A trade secret is business information, of any kind, that is not the property of the public and that cannot be disclosed easily by others and which gives its owner a business advantage over competitors. One of the indications of the existence of business information that cannot be easily discovered is the extent of the training required to teach it. Here, the drink recipes were indeed developed by the owner of the chain, but the recipes in question are already published in the business menu and can be learned from various websites on the Internet. Therefore, it cannot be claimed that the recipes are not in the public domain, and they cannot be claimed as trade secrets eligible for protection.