Self-study
P1
Often when a highly skilled and experienced employee leaves one company to work for another, there is the potential for a transfer of sensitive information between competitors. ███ █████ ██████████ ██ ████ █████ ██████ ███████████████ ███ █████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ████████████ ██████████████ ███████████ ████ ███ █████ █████████████ ███ █████ ██ ███████████ ██ ████ ███████ ██████████ ███ ██ ████ ████ ███ ██ █████ ██████████ ███
Problem ·
When employees change companies, they might take trade secrets with them
One principle - companies have right to their own intellectual property. Another principle - people can seek other employment and freely use their own abilities. These appear irreconcilable.
Courts' solution ·
Allow employees to change companies, but order employees not to disclose former employer's secrets
One critique ·
Court's solution doesn't protect employees' rights
Author's critique ·
Court's solution doesn't protect trade secrets
The transition "but it is also doubtful..." tells us that the author will focus on this critique. She won't focus on the other one.
P2
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Support for Author's Critique ·
Employees can't separate expertise they gained from prior employment
However, companies might claim that part of that expertise involves intellectual property.
P3
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Support for Author's Critique ·
Court orders don't stop subsconscious use of trade secrets
Concession ·
Court orders, in theory, prohibit subconcious use of trade secrets ("leakage")
Author's response to concession ·
Hard to enforce prohibition against leakage
There won't be much evidence of subconscious use of secrets (because it's subconscious). And, it's hard to distinguish legitimate skill developed independently by employees from skill acquired through secrets.
Author's main point ·
Court orders prohibiting disclosure of secrets are unlikely to be effective
Passage Style
Critique or debate
Problem-analysis
5.
With which one of the █████████ ██████████ █████████
Question Type
Author’s perspective
Implied
The author states that injunctions are unlikely to prevent disclosure of trade secrets except for those that are embodied in documents or other physical items. Let’s look for something the author is likely to agree with about these documents.
a
While the transfer ██ ████ █████████ █████ ██ █████████ ████ ███ █████████ █████████ █████████████ ██ ██ ████████ ██ █ ██████████ ███ ██ ████ ████ ██ ███ ████ ████
Not supported, because the author never compares the harm caused by the transfer of physical materials to the harm caused by other kinds of transfer of trade secrets.
b
Such materials are ███████ ████ ███████████ ████ ████ ███ ████████ ███ █████████ █████ █ ████████ ████
Not supported, because the author never compares the level of information in physical items to the level of information contained in an employee’s memory.
c
Injunctions against the ██████████ ██ █████ ███████ ██████ █████████ ███████ █████ █████████ ███ ████████ ██ █████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ████ ████████ █████
Not supported, because the author never suggests she cares about specifically targeting the most damaging physical items. We have no reason to think the author is against a broad injunction that includes even the less damaging items.
d
Large-scale transfer of █████████ ███ █████ █████████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ██ ████████████
Not supported, because the author doesn’t distinguish between large-scale transfer and smaller-scale transfer. There’s no evidence that injunctions would have a more difficult time preventing large-scale transfer of documents compared to smaller-scale transfers.
e
Such concrete materials ████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████████ ████ ███████ ████ ██ ███████ █████ ██ ████████████ ████████████
Supported, because (E) is the reason the author thinks injunctions might be more effective at preventing transfer of documents than preventing transfer of secrets through