## Facts

- Rivendell Forest Products, Ltd. operated as a lumber reload wholesaler and used a proprietary computer-based quoting and logistics system known as the “Quote Screen.”
- The Quote Screen enabled employees to provide customers immediate final quotes on price, quantity, location, and delivery timing without delaying to compute and call back.
- Rivendell asserted the system was unique in its market, generated quotes far faster than competitors, and produced a competitive sales advantage.
- Rivendell required employees to sign confidentiality agreements and treated its business methods and systems as confidential.
- Timothy Cornwell worked for Rivendell, supervised employees using the Quote Screen, then left to work for competitor Georgia-Pacific Corporation.
- Within months of hiring Cornwell, Georgia-Pacific created an integrated quoting system called “Quick Quote.”
- Rivendell alleged Quick Quote was functionally identical to Quote Screen and that the timing and Cornwell’s knowledge supported an inference of misappropriation, even without proof of literal source-code copying.
- Rivendell sued for misappropriation of trade secrets under the Colorado Uniform Trade Secrets Act and related claims; the district court granted defendants summary judgment, ruling the Quote Screen was not a protectable trade secret because its components were publicly available.

## Issues

1. Whether an integrated software-based pricing and logistics system can qualify as a trade secret under Colorado law when its individual elements draw from public-domain information and standard tools.
2. Whether Rivendell presented sufficient evidence of secrecy, value, and competitive advantage to create a triable issue precluding summary judgment.

## Decision

- The Tenth Circuit reviewed the summary judgment de novo.
- The court reversed the grant of summary judgment and remanded.
- The court held Rivendell produced sufficient evidence for a reasonable factfinder to conclude the Quote Screen system could be a trade secret under Colorado law.
- The court concluded the district court erred by analyzing the public nature of individual elements rather than the protectability of the integrated system as a whole.

## Legal Principles

- Under Colorado trade secret law, protectable subject matter can include “the whole or any portion or phase” of technical or business information that is secret and valuable.
- A trade secret may exist in an integrated system even if individual components are publicly known, if the integration is effective, successful, valuable, kept secret, and yields a competitive advantage.
- The existence of a trade secret and misappropriation often depend on fact-intensive questions (e.g., uniqueness of integration, reasonable secrecy measures, competitive value) and are generally unsuitable for summary judgment when supported by competent evidence.
- Use of standard software tools or publicly known business concepts does not, by itself, defeat trade secret protection for a confidential configuration or compilation that produces commercially valuable performance.

## Conclusion

The court held that an integrated, confidential quoting and logistics system may be a protectable trade secret under Colorado law even when built from public-domain elements, and it remanded because Rivendell’s evidence of secrecy and competitive value created a genuine dispute for trial.


Rivendell Forest Prods., Ltd. v. Georgia-Pacific Corp., 28 F.3d 1042 (10th Cir. 1994)