(Download) "Schulenburg v. Signatrol" by Supreme Court of Illinois # eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Schulenburg v. Signatrol
- Author : Supreme Court of Illinois
- Release Date : January 18, 1967
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 75 KB
Description
This case arises from this court's decision in Schulenburg v. Signatrol, Inc., 33 Ill.2d 379. It will be helpful to review briefly that matter in order to facilitate understanding of the issues presented here. Time-O-Matic Corporation, a plaintiff, is engaged in the production and sale of flashers. A flasher is a device which actuates and regulates the lights in electric signs in such a manner as to animate the sign according to a predetermined program. The individual defendants, while employed by the Time-O-Matic Corporation, traced or memorized confidential particularized information relating to Time-O-Matic's flashers which appeared in certain of Time-O-Matic's blue prints and drawings. Subsequently, Signatrol, Inc., a defendant, was formed by several of the individual defendants who, no longer employed by Time-O-Matic, then used the particularized plans and processes clandestinely obtained to reproduce, and enter competition with, the Time-O-Matic flasher. A suit was instituted by Time-O-Matic and the other plaintiffs for an injunction and other relief in the circuit court of Vermilion County, and after lengthy proceedings this court affirmed the trial and appellate courts' determinations that the defendants had wrongfully appropriated the plaintiffs' trade secrets by memorizing or copying the blue prints and drawings. Also, we upheld the injunction which inter alia restrained the defendants from producing a designated flasher manufactured by plaintiffs or any substantially similar flasher. However, the injunction that the trial court had issued on June 14, 1963, and which had been stayed pending appeal, was unlimited so far as duration was concerned. Since we determined, and it was conceded, that competitors could legally copy plaintiff's flasher from the product itself (as distinguished from confidential blue prints and drawings) we remanded the cause, for modification of the injunction, to the circuit court of Vermilion County, directing it to determine the period of time which would be reasonably required by the defendants to copy and produce the flasher by lawful means. The circuit court was also directed to consider the question of damages.