## Facts

- Noel Clark worked for Norman Frick’s business selling mobile homes located on leased lots.
- The business used exclusive listing agreements with owners and compiled information from those listings into “information sheets” (sometimes kept in a book).
- The information sheets summarized listing terms and included owner and property details such as descriptions and prices.
- Frick and his staff used the sheets internally and also distributed them externally, including to outside real estate agents and attendees at open houses or prospective buyers.
- After Clark discovered Frick’s real estate sales license had not been renewed, Clark confronted Frick, the dispute escalated, and Clark left with the book/set of information sheets.
- The State charged Clark with theft of trade secrets under Fla. Stat. § 812.081 (1993) based on his taking of the information sheets.
- Clark was convicted in circuit court and appealed, challenging whether the sheets qualified as “trade secrets” under the statute.

## Issues

1. Whether the information sheets compiling mobile-home listing information constituted “trade secrets” under Fla. Stat. § 812.081 (1993) sufficient to support a criminal conviction for theft of trade secrets.

## Decision

- The appellate court reversed the conviction for theft of trade secrets.
- The court held the information sheets were not “trade secrets” within the meaning of § 812.081 because they were not confidential and did not provide the required competitive advantage derived from secrecy.
- The evidence was legally insufficient to prove theft of trade secrets where the State’s theory depended on characterizing the sheets as trade secrets.

## Legal Principles

- Under Fla. Stat. § 812.081 (1993), a “trade secret” may include a “compilation of information” used or intended for use in a business that provides an advantage or opportunity to obtain an advantage over those who do not know or use it.
- Information does not qualify as a criminally protected trade secret when it is routinely disseminated to outsiders (e.g., outside agents, prospective customers) so that its value does not depend on confidentiality.
- Convenience or usefulness in ordinary marketing and sales activity is not enough; the statutory “advantage” must stem from the information’s secret or confidential character.

## Conclusion

The court reversed Clark’s theft-of-trade-secrets conviction because the listing information sheets were broadly shared in the course of marketing and therefore lacked the confidentiality and secrecy-based business advantage required for trade-secret status under § 812.081.


Clark v. State, 670 So. 2d 1056 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2d Dist. 1996)