That's not really true. If learn a trade secret you cannot use it. If it became public knowledge through no fault of your own, it's no longer a trade secret.
Put if you steal the recipe to Coke and email it to Pepsi, they can't use it, even if use doesn't disclose it.
The law in California is complicated, and appears to hold that a company is liable if they "knew or should have known" the information they were using was misappropriated. This came up a bunch back in the SCOX v. IBM days.
Re:Uber and Waymo Reach Settlement
by dsfyu404ed on Friday February 09, 2018 @03:53PM
(#16343738)
>If learn a trade secret you cannot use it.
It depends on how you learn the a trade secret.
Sure you are, you're just not allowed to reveal them. That is, once they're revealed [to outsiders], they can be used by anybody. The only cause of action that I know of is to go after the revealer (as we have here), nobody who learns (and/or uses) anything from a disclosure of trade secrets has anything to worry about.