Who owns your knowledge?

Ken is a process engineer for Stardust Chemical Corp., and he has signed a secrecy agreement with the firm that prohibits his divulging information that the company considers proprietary. 

Stardust has developed an adaptation of a standard piece of equipment that makes it highly efficient for cooling a viscous plastics slurry. (Stardust decides not to patent the idea but to keep it as a trade secret.) 

Eventually, Ken leaves Stardust and goes to work for a candy-processing company that is not in any way in competition. He soon realises that a modification similar to Stardust's trade secret could be applied to a different machine used for cooling fudge and, at once, has the change made.

Has Ken acted unethically?


In this case, it is obvious that Ken's act was unethical. Since the improvement adapted by Stardust was not either developed or patented by Ken, he had no right of sharing this development  with any other company without the permission of Stardust. Even though he should find solutions to the problems found in the new job, however he is legally committed by the secrecy agreement undertaken by himself