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Lack of unauthorized access kills Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim

Oce North America, Inc. v. MCS Services, Inc., No. 10-984, 2010 WL 3703277 (D.Md. September 16, 2010)

Plaintiff makes sophisticated commercial grade printers. It also produces complex software that is used to diagnose problems with the printers and to set the functionality of the machines.

A field engineer who used to work for plaintiff allegedly copied some of the software onto his laptop when he worked for plaintiff. Later he went to work for one of the defendant companies, a competitor to plaintiff that also services plaintiff’s machines. Other employees of the defendant allegedly used copies of the software to do their work for defendant.

Plaintiff sued for, among other things, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which prohibits unauthorized access to protected computers. Defendants moved to dismiss. The court granted the motion.

The court held that plaintiff failed to allege that the field engineer’s access to the computer containing the software was unauthorized, because he accessed it and copied it to his laptop while he still worked for plaintiff. And that access was authorized.

As for the other defendants, the court held that the defendant company’s access to the software on the various laptops was not unauthorized. The critical point in this portion of the CFAA analysis was on whether access to the actual computer (not access to the software) was unauthorized. The defendant employees allowed access to the laptops onto which the diagnostic software was allegedly installed. So the CFAA claim failed on this basis.

Full post as published by InternetCases.com on September 28, 2010 (boomark / email).