- Wed Oct 07, 2020 6:31 pm
#79841
Hi lsacgals101 and cleocleozuo!
For an Expansion question such as this, it's important to be clear on what the overall main point of the passage is as well as the author's viewpoint.
The main point, as stated in the first question in this passage, is that "Court injunctions prohibiting employees from disclosing former employers’ trade secrets to new employers probably do not achieve all of their intended objectives." Throughout the passage, the author argues that court injunctions are ineffective. The author discusses why it is basically impossible for employees to not use any of the knowledge they learned at their previous place of employment. Because it's impossible for employees to totally forget protected information they learned, court injunctions are not effective because they are barring something that cannot be barred. Therefore, the author wouldn't agree with answer choice (C) that "means of redress must be made available to companies that suspect, but cannot prove, that former employees are revealing protected information to competitors." The author wouldn't say that companies should have some way of remedying potential leakage of protected information that occurs without proof (such as "the passage of documents and other concrete embodiments of the secrets" that the author mentions at the end of the passage). The author would say that it's impossible to prevent some unintentional leakage or even to prove that the "leakage" is actually of protected trade secrets rather than just "technological skills developed independently by the employee or already possessed by the new employer."
Instead, the author would be likely to agree with answer choice (A): "Given the law as it stands, corporations concerned about preserving trade secrets might be best served by giving their employees strong incentives to stay in their current jobs." This choice is in keeping with the author's viewpoint that once an employee moves to a new company, it's impossible for them to not use or potentially leak any of the information they learned at their previous employer. Since it is impossible for employees to not "leak" information once they leave, then the only way to stop information leakage is to prevent the employees from leaving to begin with.
Hope this helps!
Best,
Kelsey