would you steal the recipe for coke if you were a secretary or temp there?

Coke re-evaluates trade secret protection
from yahoo
By HARRY R. WEBER, AP Business Writer
1 hour, 28 minutes ago

ATLANTA - It wasn't locked up in a bank vault like the recipe for its flagship soda brand. Instead, prosecutors say a new product sample at the heart of a corporate espionage case that erupted this week at The Coca-Cola Co. was accessible to a secretary.

The episode has made Coke re-evaluate its safeguards for protecting trade secrets, and other corporations ask whether they should do the same — even as the secretary's lawyer wonders what all the fuss is about.

"It's something that's made everyone I know their hair stand on end," said corporate security consultant Richard Heffernan, who works for trade group ASIS International.

Experts say the important thing is to have tough employee screening and to catalog what secrets you don't want others to know.

"One of the things that gets less importance than it really should get is we're really careful when we hire a CFO that is going to handle money or a director of research, but I think we need to pay more attention to the support people that have access to this information," Heffernan said.

Stealing trade secrets is not uncommon in a competitive corporate culture where heavy premiums are placed on bringing an innovative new product or device or technology to the market first.

In New Jersey, an electronics company executive was charged last year with hacking into the computer system of a rival firm to steal its customer and supplier lists so he could undercut the competitor's prices.

In 2004, a man was arrested in Florida after being accused of selling a stolen set of Pratt & Whitney blueprints for precision tools needed to repair a commercial jet engine to a Belgian firm. And two Michigan men were charged in 2003 with trying to steal and sell company secrets from auto-parts maker Visteon Corp.

In the Coke espionage case, Joya Williams is accused of stealing confidential documents and a sample of a new Coke product from the Atlanta-based beverage giant while working as an administrative assistant to the company's global brand director. Two men, Ibrahim Dimson and Edmund Duhaney, are charged along with her with trying to sell the items to PepsiCo Inc.

Richard Darwin, an intellectual property lawyer in San Francisco, said biotechnology firms and software companies that maintain confidential information used by employees and engineers often put that information on a highly secure computer network that is password-protected to limit access.

Other companies make employees sign confidentiality agreements promising not to divulge trade secrets, even after they leave their jobs.

"I think it's fair to say that taking steps to safeguard intellectual property, in particular the trade secrets of a company, is absolutely critical, especially here where those trade secrets relate directly to the success of a product," Darwin said.

Coke's general counsel, Geoff Kelly, sent a memo to employees Friday reminding them of just that fact.

Kelly said company policy states that any materials classified as "confidential" must be secured in locked offices and drawers when not in use. He said materials marked "restricted" must be encrypted for electronic transmission, including e-mail, and hard copies must be secured when not in use. Kelly also urged employees to come forward if they see someone doing something inappropriate.

Pharmacist John Pemberton's syrup formula that became known as Coca-Cola is locked away in an Atlanta bank. Pepsi officials have declined to talk about their information security measures.

Williams' lawyer said after a court appearance Thursday that she wants to have the product in question tested to defend her client against accusations that she likened to a "spy novel." She said the product might not be as secret as Coke says, given that her client had access to it as part of her job.

While anyone could take a Coke product currently on the market and have it tested to see what's in it, the larger concern among companies such as Coke is preventing the product itself from being known by the competition before it is released, said John Sicher, an industry analyst and editor of Beverage Digest.

"It's not about what the formula is, it's about what the product is," Sicher said. "When Coke several years ago came out with Vanilla Coke, they wanted that to be ahead of everybody else doing a vanilla cola. So, it's about what the product is. The innovation itself is what they try to keep secret."

The Coke case has renewed a discussion of protecting corporate trade secrets.

At Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., the telecommunications provider regularly examines its process for assuring that employees understand the importance of not revealing the company's technology secrets, spokesman Joe Chandler said.

UPS Inc., the Atlanta-based shipping carrier, requires management employees to attend a class every year that reminds them about the importance of protecting trade secrets and also of not accepting information about a competitor, spokesman Norm Black said.

But all the protection in the world might not stop a determined thief.

"The lab at Los Alamos can't protect every secret from someone who wants to engage in misconduct, and no company could," said Sicher.

Coke would NOT have had the "secret recipe" just where anyone could get to it. I think it was a scam, they never were going to get the real formula.They have changed the taste so many times, they don't even remember the original formula.

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Originally Posted by Mirren

Coke should not have had the "secret recipe" just where anyone could get to it, if they were so concerned. I think it was a scam, they never were going to get the real formula.They have changed the taste so many times, they don't even remember the original formula.

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i hate coke. i think it is all marketing and their secret recipe would be useless without it.

I prefer Pepsi . Fuck Coke!

soda espionage? you're kidding.

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Originally Posted by Sara X

soda espionage? you're kidding.

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No Sara, this is all too real. Dr. Pepper is in hiding. :p:

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Originally Posted by Mirren

No Sara, this is all too real. Dr. Pepper is in hiding. :p:

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I don't drink it any more because cola is just too awful to teeth, but I like Dr. Pepper and I'm sure he would never be party to something dishonest.

I wouldn't have been that clever as to think of a hustle like that. So nope.

coke and pepsi are owned by the same bigger company. so in short they stole a recipe and tried to sell it back to the same people. :P

and that happened about 15 minutes from my house hehe.. i have the real recipe!! its 1% artifical flavors, 99% teeth rot

hah god... im reading this and i realize halfway through that, for me personaly, it would have been HILARIOUS if it was the other way around, and she stole a secret recipe from pepsi instead... (because of the way they fucked over my dad when he used to work there... lame...)
but i stil dont see why its such a big deal... they lose out on being first ONCE... coke ALWAYS comes out with new shit first, then everyone else makes their own versions. either way, i still like the taste of pepsi better, even if i do hate them hehe :D
dr pepper tho... yummm. frozen!

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Originally Posted by VoldtaEngler

coke and pepsi are owned by the same bigger company. so in short they stole a recipe and tried to sell it back to the same people. :P

and that happened about 15 minutes from my house hehe.. i have the real recipe!! its 1% artifical flavors, 99% teeth rot

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Really? What company owns them?

I would like to know who owns the Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo?

Or is it just a partial ownership of shares by someone like Deutsche Securities?

Dr. Pepper/Seven Up is owned by Coca-Cola.

its a long debate on wether coke and pepsi are owned by the same company. some believe they are not, some believe they are. some say that PepsiCo owns coke and likes to do those coke wars with them so they can advertise the company anyway.

but there's rumors that they are owned by a company called Poke Inc.

but who knows lol. it could just be one of those silly urban legend myths...
or is it.... *_*

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Originally Posted by seeker

Dr. Pepper/Seven Up is owned by Coca-Cola.

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actually dr.pepper is owned by Cadbury Schweppes.. crazy how many companies are in on this eh??
http://www.cadburyschweppes.com/EN/A...epper_time.htm

you maybe correct there coca-cola owns diet Dr. Pepper/Dr.Pepper Zero.
http://www2.coca-cola.com/brands/brandlist.html#D

Poke Inc read all about it:
http://www.gonadz.org/DWTestSite/Fls...SecretPoke.htm

"It's something that's made everyone I know their hair stand on end," said corporate security consultant Richard Heffernan, who works for trade group ASIS International."

In Australia ASIS stands for Australian Security and Intelligence Service. It handles foriegn security & intelligence gathering.

well i dont like jail time ,r PRISON! so no...

On the who owns who thing, a lot of people get confused because of the way the bottling franchises work. Esp with Dr. Pepper/7 up and RC brands since neither of those companies have enough brands to have thier own full bottling franchise they are usually bottled by either a coke or pepsi bottler which means they go into vending machines and restuarants that carry products from that bottler. And if coke and Pepsi are in fact owned by the same company (they arent) then you should wonder why they spend so much money trying to develop products to compete with each other, if they where owned by the same company that wouldnt be an efficient way to make money, same goes with the ridiculous amount of add money spent by both companies trying to outdo each other. and uh Poke inc. isnt publicly traded (both pepsico and coca cola are) so that would be some kind of huge corporate scam that would easillt draw the attention of the FTC or some other equvialent to it in another country.

oh and that poke inc. page that was posted has to be a joke, either that or the peopel that worte it have no clue how publicly traded companies work.

It's made from carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, caramel color, phosphoric acid,ground up ethiopian children, sodium benzoate (a preservative), caffeine, nicotine,methamphetamine, and other natural and artificial flavors.

you forgot about the cocaine

which one of thum's the gummint mind control drug?

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Originally Posted by Morning Glory

It's made from carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, caramel color, phosphoric acid,ground up ethiopian children, sodium benzoate (a preservative), caffeine, nicotine,methamphetamine, and other natural and artificial flavors.

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:1orglaugh