According to the High Court, the exclusion of Hennessey`s testimony was an error because sufficient time had elapsed to separate the unlawful search from the testimony. In addition, Hennessey`s testimony was not coerced by law enforcement due to the illegal search. An officer had questioned Hennessey four months after the search, without specifically referring to the illegal search, and Hennessey had voluntarily provided the incriminating evidence against Ceccolini. The court overturned that decision, arguing that excluding testimony like Hennessey`s would not have a deterrent effect on law enforcement misconduct. However, considerations of protection against self-incrimination – a constitutionally guaranteed right – will be taken into account, and evidence obtained under duress will be grounds for denying their validity, but not the legality of the source alone. [10] Two, perhaps three, factors should play a role in determining the degree of downstream control we give to IPR holders. The first factor that should matter is the difference and value of the defendant`s additional work.88 Giving an IP owner control of the fruits of the poisoned tree necessarily attributes some or all of the value of the non-infringing downstream work to the owner of the upstream IP. This could potentially increase the incentive for the original IP owner to create by increasing remuneration or overall control. However, the effect is likely to be mitigated because we are, by definition, giving IP owners control over something that is outside the realm of their IP and, in most cases, unpredictable. At the same time, it will certainly reduce the reward and thus the incentive of the defendant who produces the non-infringing work. We may not mind if we think that non-infringing work is not particularly valuable, but the more valuable the defendant`s contribution, the more reluctant we should be to ban it or require the defendant to derive profits from that non-infringing work. In Ireland, the only absolute prohibition on admitting illegally obtained evidence is where the evidence was knowingly obtained in breach of constitutional rights. Evidence obtained in violation of constitutional rights, whether such violation has inadvertently or unlawfully but not violated constitutional rights, may be admitted.
[11] In determining whether the evidence is the result of a poisonous tree, the trial court judge must consider all the facts relating to the initial taking of evidence and subsequent taking of evidence. This decision is usually made by the judge at a pre-trial suppression hearing. At this hearing, the judge must first determine that an illegal search or seizure took place, and then decide whether the evidence was obtained as a result of the unlawful search or seizure. The fruit of the poisonous tree is a legal metaphor used to describe illegally obtained evidence. [1] The logic of the terminology is that if the source (the “tree”) of the evidence or the evidence itself is corrupted, then everything derived from it (the “fruit”) is also corrupted. Illegally obtained evidence is used by courts to ensure that the verdict is factually accurate, but the person receiving the illegal evidence usually faces independent consequences. [clarification needed] The Trade Secrets Act also applies the poison tree doctrine in a temporal sense. Trade secrets are protected only until they are made public.24 Nevertheless, courts sometimes issue injunctions that prevent the defendant from using the secret or the products developed with it even after the secret has been known. These “exemplary injunctions” are available to plaintiffs who may have published or otherwise disclosed their secret after it has been misappropriated.25 For example, suppose Anne has a secret that she is marketing. Further suppose that it takes Anne two years after developing the secret to bring the product to market, after which the secret is revealed. If Benjamin steals Anne`s idea during the development process (say after a year), Benjamin can hit the market a year earlier than if he had waited for the information to be made public.
In such a case, the courts will issue an injunction for a period of one year, putting Benjamin in the same position he would have been without secrecy. Even if such an injunction is not possible (e.g. because Benjamin has already entered the market), the courts may allow him to continue using the old secret, but require him to pay Anne a “reasonable fee”.26 The reasonable royalty is said to be approximately equal to the royalty Anne Benjamin may have charged in a voluntary transaction.27 But it is a payment for the sale of products, made using information that is no longer secret. and therefore for a use that would do no harm, but for the fruit of the theory of the poisonous tree. Some courts have developed and advanced this idea even further by converting injunctions into permanent injunctions that prevent any use of information, even if it is no longer secret,28 but this goes beyond what even the broadest causal theory of trade secret law should allow. The term poisonous tree fruit was first used in Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 60 S.
Ct. 266, 84 L. Ed. 307 (1939). In the Nardone case, Frank C. Nardone appealed his conviction for smuggling and concealment of alcohol and conspiracy. In an earlier decision, the High Court ruled that the interception of Nardone`s telephone conversations by government agents violated the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C.A. § 605). The court questioned whether the trial court erred in not allowing Nardone`s lawyer to ask the prosecution whether and how it had used information obtained during the illegal wiretap. [108]. The rise of the doctrine of transformative use in fair use has moved copyright law in the right direction by excusing many uses that would otherwise have triggered the fruit of the poison tree doctrine. See generally, for example, Authors Guild v.
Google, Inc., 804 F.3d 202 (2d Cir. 2015) (application of transformative use doctrine to copyright infringement); Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley Ltd., 448 F.3d 605 (2d Cir. 2006) (Application of the Transformation Doctrine in a Postered Copyright Case); Pierre N. Leval, Towards a Fair Use Standard, 103 Harv. 1105 (1990) (provides an overview of the interaction between the doctrines of transformative and fair use). Finally, any intellectual property regime should restrict the application of the poison tree doctrine in cases where the defendant`s use adds significant value beyond the mere implementation or enhancement of the plaintiff`s intellectual property. We do not want to shut down valuable inventions and creations such as pharmaceuticals or computer programs because of their creation. Owners of intellectual property rights should be compensated for infringements, but they should not be able to claim the defendant`s creativity simply because their work was used to create the defendant`s work. Copyright law makes this partly right and partly wrong.
It allows reverse engineering for the purpose of creating non-infringing products, but it also takes away creative derivative works from their creators if those works contain illegally used material.104 In contrast, patent law allows a defendant to patent its own contribution separately, although it also threatens to block the use of that contribution through the doctrine of “patent blocking.” 105 Finally, any form of intellectual property right allows a court to increase damages in certain circumstances, normally on the basis of a finding that the infringement is intentional or intentional. Patent, design, trade secret, and trademark law allows courts to award up to three times actual damages and attorneys` fees in such a case,86 while copyright allows for an increase in statutory damages and an award of attorneys` fees.87 Aggravated damages are intended to deter intentional infringement. But unlike other punishments (e.g., prison), they are also a form of fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine. The defendant must pay an amount in addition to the money directly attributable to the infringement, so that the owner of the intellectual property is compensated not only for the infringing act, but also for profits that are not directly attributable to the infringement. If the primary evidence was obtained illegally but is admissible under the bona fide exception, its derivatives (or “fruits”) may also be admissible. The Supreme Court accepted the case and quashed the convictions. The court began its analysis by concluding that the Court of Appeal had ruled that Sun and Toy`s arrests were unlawful. The question was whether the four pieces of evidence against Sun and Toy were admissible despite the illegality of the arrests. The four pieces of evidence were the oral statements Toy made in his room at the time of his arrest, the heroin given to Yee`s agents, Toy`s unsigned testimony to Officer William Wong, and Sun`s unsigned testimony to Officer William Wong.
The trademark right that most closely resembles the attribution of the fruit of the poisonous tree to plaintiffs falls within the scope of the remedies that the courts grant once they have found infringement. Injunction actions are generally limited to preventing only infringing conduct.82 A court that has found infringement may extend the scope of the injunction and prohibit not only the defendant`s trademark, but also other trademarks that appear similar but need not necessarily be confusing.83 This gives trademark owners in a limited sense, control over the scope of their intellectual property rights. But it`s not really control over the fruit of the poisonous tree itself. How do the various fruits of the poisonous tree doctrines in intellectual property law compare to these principles? To begin with, the principles I have described above may explain the otherwise surprising magnitude of the fruit of the poison tree doctrine in the Trade Secrets Act.