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husbands. Subsequent references to "petitioners" refer only to
Edward, Thomas, and Kenneth.
Petitioners were all longtime employees of International
Business Machines Corp. (IBM). Edward and Kenneth were asked by
IBM executives to establish and run the customer business
development (CBD) department in 1985. The CBD department was
intended to be an IBM in-house consulting group. Although Edward
was working for IBM in Bethesda, Maryland, and Kenneth was
working for IBM in the Chicago, Illinois, area, they worked
together on the CBD project.
Edward and Kenneth wrote a book entitled "Strategic
Choices," which discussed the business management techniques that
they were using in the CBD department. Thomas, though not a part
of the CBD department, helped Edward and Kenneth in the writing
of "Strategic Choices". Edward and Kenneth owned the rights to
any royalties from "Strategic Choices". IBM did not pay
petitioners additional compensation for using the management
techniques discussed in the book, and it did not receive
royalties from the book.
In the course of their work with the CBD department, Edward
and Kenneth became acquainted with high-level management of the
National Association of Counties (NACO), a national association
representing over 6,500 counties in the United States. NACO was
requesting bids from consulting firms to work with them on a
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