## Facts

- A bakery manufacturer developed a chocolate chip cookie formula that achieved commercial success after adding walnut “nut dust” (walnut chaff/meal) to the batter.
- The company treated the formula as confidential by storing copies in secure locations, limiting access to trusted employees, and telling inquirers the recipe was a trade secret.
- Operationally, the company separated the formula into component ingredient cards that concealed true proportions and restricted access to those cards.
- A maintenance and safety employee was not authorized to access the ingredient cards, but the trial court found he obtained access through a pretext.
- After he left, a master key capable of opening secured areas where the formula was kept was found in his desk.
- The employee and related defendants started a competing prepackaged bakery business and sold chocolate chip cookies found to use the same formula, including the nut dust.
- The trial court found the market contained many cookie brands, but the plaintiff’s and defendants’ cookies were uniquely alike among them.

## Issues

1. Whether the plaintiff’s chocolate chip cookie formula, including the use and combination of walnut “nut dust,” constituted a protectable trade secret under Massachusetts law.
2. Whether the defendants improperly acquired and used the formula, and whether a permanent injunction barring use of the formula was an appropriate remedy.

## Decision

- The Massachusetts Appeals Court affirmed the Superior Court judgment after a bench trial.
- The court upheld findings that the cookie formula was a trade secret and that defendants acquired and used it by improper means.
- The court sustained a permanent injunction restraining defendants from making, baking, or selling chocolate chip cookies using the plaintiff’s formula, even without express geographic or time limits, because it forbade only use of the specific formula.

## Legal Principles

- A recipe or food formula may qualify as a trade secret when it has economic value from not being generally known and the owner employs reasonable measures to maintain secrecy.
- Misappropriation occurs when a party acquires confidential information through improper means (including unauthorized access) and uses it in competition.
- Injunctive relief may properly bar continued use of a misappropriated trade secret; an injunction may be permanent and not geographically limited when it is confined to prohibiting use of the specific secret rather than excluding the defendant from lawful competition generally.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed that the plaintiff’s cookie formula was a protected trade secret, that defendants wrongfully obtained and used it, and that equity permitted a permanent injunction narrowly prohibiting use of the misappropriated formula.


Peggy Lawton Kitchens, Inc. v. Hogan, 18 Mass. App. Ct. 937 (1984)