New emails released in the McDonald’s ice cream machine lawsuit
I don&#x27;t see any basis why the complaint is interesting - there&#x27;s assertion that the ice cream machine manufacturer is copying features of the competitor&#x27;s device, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do and, in the absence of patent protection (the word &quot;patent&quot; is not mentioned in the article) absolutely permissible; and there&#x27;s some assertion of &quot;stealing trade secrets&quot; without asserting any actual compromise of a secret by someone entrusted to keep it, but rather an act which looks like reverse engineering a product (which, again, does not require a permission for physical devices not covered by patents or copyright; trade secret law explicitly states that reverse engineering is a lawful way of acquiring trade secrets) and its documentation, which should be considered a very reasonable thing to do for anyone with a hacker mentality. Trade secret applies only to things that you actually keep secret, all the things you sell or give to your customers aren&#x27;t trade secrets any more.<p>&quot;There was a concerted effort to not only obtain and copy our device and follow everything we were doing, but then also, when it hit a critical mass, to actually put us out of business,&quot; - that&#x27;s pretty much textbook definition of market competition, not an indication of anything shady.<p>&quot;Kytch argued in its initial legal complaint that the company didn&#x27;t truly copy Kytch&#x27;s device to try to fix McDonald&#x27;s ice cream machines, but simply to have a competing product it could tout to McDonald&#x27;s—and McDonald&#x27;s franchisees—in order to prevent Kytch from fixing those machines.&quot; - again, it&#x27;s perfectly legitimate to try and make a competing product to tout to McDonalds; unless they&#x27;re violating a specific patent, it&#x27;s their right to do so; more competition is a good thing to have.