QLD Legal Protection for Confidential Information?

[Peter6]

Following is the material I was provided by Copyright Protection. Can I believe that even I did not sign a nondisclosure agreement with another party, my IP is considered as confidential information according to the second point shown below?

Legal protection for confidential information:

If a person discloses information to another person on a confidential basis, that person may have a legal claim for breach of confidence if the information is misappropriated. To succeed, the person would need to show that:

• the information is of a confidential nature (trivial information or information that is public knowledge will not be protected);

• the information was given in circumstances where the obligation of confidence was made known and accepted or was implicit from the context; and

• there was an unauthorised use or threatened use of the information.

Thanks,

 

[Sophea]

Hi Peter6,

All three of those points must be satisfied in order for there to be an obligation of confidence, not just point 2.

It is true that where information is given to another person and they are told that the information is confidential and is only to be used for a specific purpose, then they have an obligation to maintain confidentiality. If they do not, there is breach of that obligation.

However there are many tests applied by courts to determine whether the 3 tiers of the above test will be satisfied in a given situation, so it is a little more complex than this in reality.

 

[Peter6]

It is my IP and I guess it meets point 1.

For point3, the other party applied a similar concept and method as the solutions I provided to the company for the purpose of the verification. The company argued about that my solutions sent to them did not work and the similar solution was worked out later by themselves. But I have emails to provide evidences on that they were happy with my solutions and did not find any issues with the solutions.

Do you think the evidence is enough for the point 3?

Thanks