overall contents are excellent except 3 below.. plz change it.. first. this assignment should be the format of formal essay form introduction body ( at least 4 paragraph) conclusion second. i...

Introduction
Information, of all kinds, is a very important tool for the success of a business. The
contemporary competitive economic environment has further increased the importance of
information to businesses. This information may be formal in the form of written records
provided by various governmental or statutory publications; or these may be informal in the
form of oral or written records provided by customers, suppliers and other business
associates. It helps the business to achieve operational excellence and productivity for the
usiness through providing a link between the suppliers and the business and finally, the
customers. Right information at the right time helps the business to make an informed
decision and thus, improves decision making. It follows from here that a business having thus
gained operational efficiency, productivity, and improved decision-making stands to gain
competitive advantage over other of its competitor businesses.
Discussion
Information may be available for free use for the entire public or it may be confidential and
thus pose restrictions as regards the situations and the people to whom it may pass. It is
difficult to give a precise definition to the term confidential information (Re Co
s Pavey
Whiting & Byrne v Collector of Customs (Vic) ) and it may at best be described as
information having an requirement of confidentiality. This requirement of confidentiality in
information may arise either expressly as part of the contract between the parties or may be
implied as a result of the fiduciary relationship between the parties concerned. It must be
noted that this characteristic of confidential information, being independent of contract and
existence of equity to protect trade secrets, was first upheld in the case of Saltman
Engineering Co. Ltd. v Campbell Engineering Co. Ltd. (1948) 65 R.P.C. 203. It was held
therein that information can be confidential only if it is not public property and public
knowledge. It may be in the nature of a formula, a plan, a sketch, or something of that kind,
which is the outcome of work done by the maker upon materials which may be available for
the use of anybody. But it can be confidential only if the maker has processed the information
on his own. It is essential that it has been developed by somebody and in the process, it
comes to attain such unique nature and this what makes the information confidential in
nature. The honourable judge Mega
y J., in the case of Coco v. A.N. Clark (Engineers) Ltd
[1969] RPC 41, explained confidential information by laying down three elements which
would amount to
each of confidence. These include that the “information must have the
quality of being confidential, it must be so imparted that an obligation of confidence is
imported, and there must be an unauthorised use of that information to the detriment of the
person communicating it”. In the case of Mustad v Dosen [1963] RPC 41, it was held that an
employer cannot restrain his ex-employee from revealing a secret process to his new
employer if that process has already been patented by the employer preceding the revelation
y the ex-employee as by then it already had become public knowledge. Information which is
gained by the employee during the course of his employment must be treated as confidential
y him. ( Re Faccenda Chicken Ltd v Fowler)
Principles applicable to the protection of Confidential information
New Zealand law protects confidential information in so far as they relate to the secrets of
trade like business methods and processes of an industry. Various principles which are
applicable to the protection of confidential information have developed on the basis of
several decided cases.
An important principle applicable to confidential information is that the owner should have
either created such information or has acquired it from somebody else. Another factor that
throws light on the peculiar nature of the confidential information is that it cannot be
egarded as any form of a property but is rather a right in personam.( Moorgate Tobacco Co
Ltd v Philip Mo
is Ltd (No 2) (1984) 156 CLR 414). The information itself cannot be
egarded as property but the equitable right in action on the basis of such confidential
informaiton may be regarded as property. Also, it is important that there must be
“circumstances which make the information confidential”. This was held and established in
the Saltman case.These circumstances may be explicit or implicit in contract, may be in the
form of a fiduciary duty or a trade practice....