QLD Letter of Demand - Refusing to Disclose Source of Information?

[Peter6]

I exposed my IP (confidential information) to a company when talking about commercialisation with the company. The talk ceased after one and half years. Later, I found the company released some product using that. When I talked to them about it, I was told that they obtain that information from public domain. I asked for the source and no response.

A letter of demand was sent to the company for the source.

Can the company refuse to disclose the source where they obtained the information?

 

[Leonard Mancini]

Hi Peter

They can refuse to provide the information. However you can get preliminary discovery in the Federal Court to determine whether you have a cause of action against them. They would be foolish to resist such an application.

Has the information you provided them since become publicly available other than by their breach?

What you will want to weigh up is what remedy you could obtain even if you could prove the unauthorised use of the confidential information. Provided the information hasn't otherwise become public you should be able to get a declaration and injunction preventing them from using the information, moving forward, for however long the agreement provided the information was to remain confidential.

None of this comes cheap, however. The cost of filing Federal Court pre-discovery application would be in the order of $10K plus ongoing costs of the proceedings which will easily double the initial costs, but probably much more.

Having said that, after filing the application the other side should capitulate at that point and hand over the documents to prevent further costs being incurred that they would be ultimately responsible for. That has been my experience in any case.

Happy to advise you in respect of your particular circumstances if you want to get in touch.

Len

 

[Peter6]

The information is used and exposed by the company to the public.

 

[Peter6]

had a response letter from their lawyer. They lied about what happened. For example, it said that the talk stopped in the first testing or verification (last about 2 to 3 months). I have emails to prove that they are not tell the truth. they were happy with the solutions and invited me for the second talk with a person in much more senior position. it lasted one and half years.
Can they lie about this? what can you do about it? it is a tactic or there is no penalty for lying?