## Facts

- Buckingham Wax Company manufactured sanitation and maintenance chemicals and employed Alvin Greenberg as chief chemist from 1949 to April 1957.
- Greenberg’s duties included analyzing and duplicating competitors’ products, modifying formulas for commercial use, and sourcing ingredients to reduce cost and improve quality.
- A long-time customer, Brite Products Co., purchased and resold Buckingham’s products under its own label; for about one year it bought exclusively from Buckingham.
- During his employment, Greenberg developed a cleaner formula and two floor-finisher formulas that Buckingham treated as confidential.
- The formulas were developed through Greenberg’s routine work modifying competitor-derived formulas, without employer-directed special projects, unusual research expense, or significant supervision beyond normal job conditions.
- Greenberg signed no confidentiality, non-compete, or other restrictive agreement, and no oral post-employment restriction was shown.
- After leaving Buckingham, Greenberg joined Brite; Brite began manufacturing competing products using formulas Buckingham claimed were its trade secrets.
- Buckingham sued in equity to enjoin Greenberg, Brite, and Brite’s officers from using or disclosing the formulas and sought an accounting; the trial court granted permanent injunctive relief and ordered an accounting.

## Issues

1. Whether an employee-chemist breaches a duty of confidence by using or disclosing secret formulas developed during routine employment when no express post-employment restriction exists and the employer made no extraordinary development investment.
2. Whether the subsequent employer and its officers may be enjoined or held liable for using such formulas received from the former employee.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed the decree and assessed costs against Buckingham.
- The court held Greenberg violated no trust or confidential relationship by disclosing or using the formulas he developed or supervised.
- Even if the formulas qualified as trade secrets against the public, they were part of Greenberg’s technical knowledge and skill acquired through employment, which he had an unqualified privilege to use and disclose.
- Because Greenberg was privileged to disclose and use the formulas, Brite and its officers were likewise privileged to use them.
- The injunction and accounting were vacated.

## Legal Principles

- Trade-secret status does not automatically create a perpetual equitable duty preventing a former employee from using information after employment ends.
- In the absence of an express restrictive covenant (or comparable special circumstances), technical information developed through an employee’s routine work may be treated as part of the employee’s general skill and knowledge, freely usable post-employment.
- Employer claims of confidential relationship-based nondisclosure are weakened where the asserted secrets were not produced by employer-directed special research, extraordinary employer expense, or a clearly communicated effort to secure exclusive development for the employer.
- If the former employee is privileged to use and disclose the information, recipients (including a new employer) are not liable merely for using it.

## Conclusion

The court held that formulas created through a chemist’s routine employment duties, without a restrictive agreement or special employer investment, were part of the chemist’s general skill and knowledge, permitting post-employment use and disclosure; equitable relief and an accounting against the chemist and the subsequent employer were reversed.


Wexler v. Greenberg, 160 A.2d 430 (Pa. 1960)