Trade secrets

Iowa State University cannot release research data about how a meat packaging company processes the controversial “pink slime” beef product because the processes are trade secrets, a district judge ruled.

The research a professor conducted for Beef Products, Inc. (BPI) at a university laboratory falls under the trade secrets exemption of the state Freedom of Information Act, Story County District Judge Dale Ruigh stated in an opinion released last month.

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in University of Connecticut v. Freedom of Information Commission that a public entity could invoke the trade secret exemption in the state freedom of information act to shield its own records from being released.

Typically, such trade secret exemptions are invoked to protect against the disclosure of private sector trade secret information in the possession of the government.

The maker of the iPhone and iPad failed to convince a federal judge in California that court documents in its lawsuit against a maker of Mac computer clones should remain shielded from public view.

The Department of Agriculture must disclose 1,017 pages of animal testing records to an animal protection organization, a D.C. federal judge ordered last week. 

The nonprofit animal rights group In Defense of Animals filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain documents relating to the USDA’s investigation of Huntingdon Life Sciences, Inc., a contract research organization with a facility in New Jersey.

Ohio's Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the annual exam given to ninth-graders in Cincinnati's public schools is not a public record subject to disclosure because it is a trade secret and therefore excempt from public records law, The Columbus Dispatch reports.

The string of FOIA lawsuits for release of records of the government's emergency lending programs finally saw its first victory Monday. The Federal Reserve Board must release to Bloomberg News records identifying the financial firms it loaned bailout funds to as well as the assets or amounts put up as collateral, the news agency reported.

For the second time in nearly three years, a coalition of news groups and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press are pushing for openness in an ongoing antitrust suit between computer industry players AMD and Intel.

In its latest bid to permeate the secrecy that has all but shut reporters out of AMD v. Intel, the media coalition filed a motion Thursday saying documents have been sealed too readily and hearing transcripts have been closed without explanation from the court.

The Supreme Court of Mississippi will decide whether records of dental experiments and other research conducted on animals by Mississippi State University for a pet food company are protected trade secrets or publicly available under the state's public records act.