00-1681 U.S. v. Lange

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“According to Lange, all data obtained by reverse engineering some other product are ‘readily ascertainable . . . by the public’ because everyone can do what RAPCO did: buy an original part, disassemble and measure it, and make a copy. The prosecutor responds to this contention by observing that ‘the public’ is unable to reverse engineer an aircraft brake assembly.

“The prosecutor’s assumption is that the statutory reference in §1839(3) to ‘the public’ means the general public-the man in the street. Ordinary people don’t have AutoCAD and 60-ton flywheels ready to hand. But is the general public the right benchmark? The statute itself does not give an answer: the word ‘public’ could be preceded implicitly by ‘general’ as the prosecutor supposes, but it also could be preceded implicitly by ‘educated’ or ‘economically important’ or any of many other qualifiers.

“It is by keeping secrets from its rivals that RAPCO captures the returns of its design and testing work. Thus it is unnecessary here to decide whether ‘general’ belongs in front of ‘public’-for even if it does, the economically valuable information is not ‘readily ascertainable’ to the general public, the educated public, the economically relevant public, or any sensible proxy for these groups.”

Affirmed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Stadtmueller, J., Easterbrook, J.