Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Maryland

Re: Fair Trade Secrets Act

Your obligation to return the company's equipment and trade secrets is independent of the rightness or wrongness of your termination. You should return their property.

Re: Fair Trade Secrets Act

Let's see...you took your company's office equipment/computer, which happens to contain valuable intellectual property. Then, after being fired, you have failed to return it upon request.

This is not your property, it is your former employer's property. To the extent you ever legally possessed it in the first place, that possession was only in the capacity of your legitimate scope of employment. Upon termination, you automatically had no legitimate basis on which to retain or possess the company's property, thus, you had an obligation to return it immediately, whether or not asked to do so, and you certainly have an obligation to return it when requested by your company.

It boggles the mind that you would think you have any right whatsoever to retain possession of this equipment and intellectual property, which you do not claim to have any legitimate property interest in.

You could be charged criminally with theft and perhaps other crimes for failure to return that which is not yours, and would also have civil liability under a variety of theories.

Since apparently you could be charged with theft or other crime, even if you return the property at this point, you need to consult with an attorney immediately about what you should do.