“Very few technology executives guard trade secrets as determinedly as Apple CEO Steve Jobs,” Greg Sandoval and Declan McCullagh report for CNET. “In a sector noted for paranoia, he stands out for his willingness to file suit against anyone disseminating information that he believes belongs solely to his company. Journalists, Apple developers, even teenagers; it doesn’t matter. Apple has sued them all for exposing trade secrets.”
“That’s why if Apple chooses to pursue a civil suit against Gawker Media, parent company of the gadget blog Gizmodo, it would unlikely surprise anyone who knows Apple’s history,” Sandoval and McCullagh report.
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In a related article, Sandoval and McCullagh report, “Criminal charges recently filed against two men who allegedly sold a prototype iPhone to Gizmodo.com have a not-so-obvious side effect. A successful conviction in San Mateo County will make it easier for Apple to win a civil suit against the gadget blog, if it pursues one as its lawyers threatened last year, legal experts tell CNET.”
“‘Will the criminal case help them? Absolutely,’ says Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who’s a former federal public defender. ‘They’re going to learn a lot more about what happened,'” Sandoval and McCullagh report. “The reason is that it will likely shake loose more details about the two defendants–Brian Hogan and Sage Robert Wallower–and any interactions they had with Gizmodo and its parent company, Gawker Media.”
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