A half-century after the Supreme Court blessed trade secrets, Kewanee Oil v. Bicron remains the clearest map of when to file and when to keep quiet.
When Stiffel's lamp patents were held invalid, the Supreme Court ruled that no state unfair-competition law could stop Sears from copying the unpatented design — establishing that exclusivity flows only from the federal patent bargain.
A unanimous Supreme Court struck down Florida's anti-plug-molding statute, holding that a state may not grant patent-like protection to an unpatented design already disclosed to the public — and explaining why trade-secret law survives the same test.
The Supreme Court held that federal patent law does not bar a state-law contract requiring perpetual royalties on a keyholder design whose patent application was rejected — a foundational endorsement of the license-instead-of-patent strategy.
