## Facts

- Rockwell Graphic Systems, Inc. manufactured large newspaper printing presses and replacement parts.
- Rockwell created and maintained engineering “piece part drawings” for individual press components and treated them as confidential.
- DEV Industries, Inc., a competitor in press parts, and its president, Robert J. Fleck (a former Rockwell employee), were accused of obtaining and using Rockwell’s drawings.
- Rockwell asserted federal RICO claims and related state-law claims premised on alleged trade secret misappropriation.
- Rockwell offered evidence of secrecy measures, including restricted access, secure storage, confidentiality legends on drawings, and confidentiality agreements with employees and vendors.
- Defendants relied on evidence that some Rockwell customers possessed drawings and allegedly shared them, arguing the drawings were effectively in the public domain.
- The district court entered summary judgment for defendants after adopting a magistrate judge’s recommendation that Rockwell’s drawings were not trade secrets because Rockwell had not taken reasonable steps to preserve secrecy, and it dismissed the federal RICO theory and declined to proceed on pendent state claims.

## Issues

1. Whether Rockwell’s piece part drawings could qualify as trade secrets under Illinois law given the requirement of “reasonable efforts” to maintain secrecy.
2. Whether the record was so one-sided that the reasonableness of Rockwell’s secrecy precautions could be decided as a matter of law on summary judgment.
3. Whether dismissal of the federal RICO claim was premature because it depended on the absence of any protectable trade secrets and related predicate acts.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit reversed the grant of summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that trade secret owners must take reasonable (not perfect) precautions to maintain secrecy.
- The court concluded that, on this record, the reasonableness of Rockwell’s precautions could not be resolved on summary judgment because it required case-specific evaluation and weighing of competing evidence.
- Because a factfinder could conclude the drawings were trade secrets and were misappropriated, the federal RICO claim could not be rejected at the summary judgment stage on the ground that no trade secrets existed.

## Legal Principles

- Trade secret protection requires information that is not generally known and that is subject to efforts reasonable under the circumstances to maintain secrecy.
- Absolute security is not required; the standard is reasonable precautions, not perfection.
- Reasonableness of secrecy measures generally presents a fact question involving cost-benefit judgment and industry context; it should be decided on summary judgment only in an extreme case.
- Information in the public domain cannot be claimed as a trade secret, and uncontrolled dissemination may defeat secrecy, but the effect of dissemination depends on the scope of disclosure and the owner’s overall controls, including as to the specific information in dispute.
- When federal liability depends on disputed trade secret status (as a predicate), summary judgment is improper if a reasonable factfinder could find protectable trade secrets and misappropriation.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit held that the record did not permit a definitive legal finding that Rockwell failed to take reasonable secrecy precautions, making summary judgment improper; the case was remanded because a factfinder could still determine the drawings were trade secrets and that defendants’ conduct supported Rockwell’s federal and state claims.


Rockwell Graphic Sys., Inc. v. DEV Indus., Inc., 925 F.2d 174 (7th Cir. 1991)