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Coke v. Williams

Overman

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Overman
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Does this seem harsh to anyone else? 8 years for trying to sell the recipe to pop?

I know you have to regulate trade secrets, but 8 years!?!
 
Coca-Cola is one of the top 10 most-recognized brand names in the whole world. It is my understanding that it is a major employer in the city of Atlanta. The maximum recommended sentence (78 months, 6 1/2 years) isn't that much less than 8 years. And she lied on the stand.

It's harsh, but considering the context, it's not outrageously harsh.

If her lawyer were smart, he/she would have tried to move the trial to somewhere besides Atlanta.
 
A basic foundation of the marketing of Coca Cola is that The Formula is so damn special that it's what makes the product make you want to buy it. This poor fool's long sentence fits in very nicely with the aims of that century-old marketing campaign.
 
I also find it interesting that even Pepsi realized the unethical nature of what Williams was doing, even though they stood to benefit almost unimaginably. Big props to the Pepsi corporate culture for that.
 
Beleth said:
I also find it interesting that even Pepsi realized the unethical nature of what Williams was doing, even though they stood to benefit almost unimaginably. Big props to the Pepsi corporate culture for that.
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Psshh, someone probably did a cost benefit analysis.
 
Their new add campaign says that everyone really wants a 'P-oke'.
 
Maybe it turns out that Coke is still full of cocaine, and they don't want that to get out. Or maybe it's full of secret CIA mind control chemicals! Or nanorobots that infest your internal organs and lie in wait until the secret signal is given on American Idol, whereupon all the viewers will explode! Or I saw on Farscape once that when the greedy puppet guy ate some space vegetables, he would pee explosive raygun fuel. Occam's Razor suggests that's the most likely possibility because it involves a puppet.
 
doesn't seem that harsh to me. She stole documents by her own valuation worth $1.5 million. She could have pleaded guilty and didn't and she apparently lied under oath. I have absolutely no sympathy for her.
 
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If I see someone with the recipe for Coke on a plane, I'll kill them.
 
Haven't studies showed that most people can't even determine the difference between Coke and most other similar soft-drinks? How much is that particular recipe even worth?
 
Dustin Kesselberg said:
Haven't studies showed that most people can't even determine the difference between Coke and most other similar soft-drinks? How much is that particular recipe even worth?
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I bet I can tell the difference between Pepsi and Cole 100% of the time... not even similar.
 
Dustin Kesselberg said:
Haven't studies showed that most people can't even determine the difference between Coke and most other similar soft-drinks? How much is that particular recipe even worth?
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I don't see anything in the article that says she stole the actual recipe for Coca-Cola itself, although it is pretty vague about what she did steal (which, since they are secrets, isn't a surprise). It says she took "confidential documents and samples of products that hadn't been launched by Coca-Cola." It sounds like a lot of what she took were plans for future products, not for products that are already on the market.
 
ARubberChickenWithAPulley said:
I don't see anything in the article that says she stole the actual recipe for Coca-Cola itself, although it is pretty vague about what she did steal (which, since they are secrets, isn't a surprise). It says she took "confidential documents and samples of products that hadn't been launched by Coca-Cola." It sounds like a lot of what she took were plans for future products, not for products that are already on the market.
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Canteloupe Coke
Chocolate Coke
New Diet Lite Crystal Zero Clear Transparent Nonfatty-fat-fat Coke
Paula Abdul Coke
New New Coke
Asparagus and Mint Coke
Wild Donkey Coke
Coke Kevorkian--aka Coke Fatal
 
She stole something that belonged to a company that was so inconsiderate as to give her a job, and tried to sell it to her employer's competitor, believing it would be of such enormous value to that competitor that they would make her rich in exchange for the ill-gotten goods.

If she worked for a jeweler, and stole a million dollars worth of diamonds, would this seem like a harsh penalty? If Pepsi hadn't turned her in, but profited from the crime, to the point of taking a large market share advantage from Coke, and greatly devaluing the worth of millions of Coke stockholders, would it be any different?
 
Michael Redman said:
She stole something that belonged to a company that was so inconsiderate as to give her a job, and tried to sell it to her employer's competitor, believing it would be of such enormous value to that competitor that they would make her rich in exchange for the ill-gotten goods.

If she worked for a jeweler, and stole a million dollars worth of diamonds, would this seem like a harsh penalty? If Pepsi hadn't turned her in, but profited from the crime, to the point of taking a large market share advantage from Coke, and greatly devaluing the worth of millions of Coke stockholders, would it be any different?
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Recipes can be reverse engineered with out great difficulty. Production techniques would be more likely to be highly valued proprietary information.
 
Dustin Kesselberg said:
Haven't studies showed that most people can't even determine the difference between Coke and most other similar soft-drinks?
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No.

How much is that particular recipe even worth?
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Coca-Cola made over 24 billion dollars in revenues last year. I would imagine that the lion's share of that came from its flagship product.

But it wasn't that recipe she tried to sell to Pepsi anyway.
 
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