![Even when the information is no longer confidential, the law must often control what the recipient can use it for. It can be used as a springboard, allowing the recipient to compete more effectively with the proprietor of the information without the need to learn or compile the previously confidential information: Terrapin Ltd v Builders Supply Co (Hayes) Ltd [1960] RPC 128. The matter was dealt with by Megarry J in the Coco case:](https://images.tandf.co.uk/common/jackets/crclarge/978185941/9781859411070.jpg "Even when the information is no longer confidential, the law must often control what the recipient can use it for. It can be used as a springboard, allowing the recipient to compete more effectively with the proprietor of the information without the need to learn or compile the previously confidential information: Terrapin Ltd v Builders Supply Co (Hayes) Ltd [1960] RPC 128. The matter was dealt with by Megarry J in the Coco case:")
ABSTRACT
Before I turn to the second main head, that of interlocutory relief, I should mention one point on the substantive law that caused me some difficulty during the argument. This is what may be called the ‘springboard’ doctrine. In the Seager case at p 931, Lord Denning quoted a sentence from the judgment of Roxburgh J in the Terrapin case, which was quoted and adopted as correct by Roskill J in the Cranleigh case. It runs as follows:
As I understand it, the essence of this branch of the law, whatever the origin of it may be, is that a person who has obtained information in confidence is not allowed to use it as a springboard for activities detrimental to the person who made the confidential communication, and springboard it remains even when all the features have been published or can be ascertained by actual inspection by any member of the public.
