In an order with important implications for trade secret disputes in federal court, on August 12, 2025, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a district court abused its discretion in striking a plaintiff’s trade secret disclosures for lack of specificity before discovery had been conducted. The court held that, unlike the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act (CUTSA), the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) does not require disclosure of the alleged trade secrets with “particularity” prior to discovery. Instead, whether a trade secret has been alleged with sufficient particularity is a factual question to be resolved at summary judgment or trial. This precedent will allow plaintiffs suing under the DTSA in federal court greater freedom to develop their trade secret claims through discovery. It also will make it more difficult for defendants to attack trade secret claims through early motion practice. And it will widen the procedural and strategic differences between trade secrets litigation brought under DTSA only, and cases that include claims brought under CUTSA, potentially leading many plaintiffs to forego CUTSA claims altogether.
Background Regarding the Dispute
The decision arose from a dispute between two California DNA sequencing analysis firms, Quintara and Ruifeng. Quintara alleged that, in 2019, after the two companies had worked together for several years, Ruifeng locked Quintara out of its offices, took its equipment, and hired away its employees. Quintara sued in the Northern District of California, and the case was assigned to Judge William Alsup. In its First Amended Complaint, Quintara included one count under the DTSA for misappropriation of trade secrets, but made no claims under CUTSA. Quintara alleged that Ruifeng misappropriated nine trade secrets defined as: (1) customer database; (2) customer profile database; (3) marketing plan; (4) design of potential new products; (5) vendor database; (6) computer software code; (7) customized reagents and protocols; (8) design of new products; and (9) DNA Donor technology.
After Quintara filed high-level disclosures of these trade secrets, Ruifeng moved for a protective order to halt discovery until Quintara specified its trade secrets with particularity as required by CUTSA. After the court ordered disclosures to be made with greater specificity, and Quintara made further disclosures, Ruifeng moved to strike under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(f), arguing Quintara’s disclosures remained insufficient. The court granted Ruifeng’s Motion to Strike as to nine of the (by then) eleven disclosed trade secrets and, in the alternative, ordered their dismissal as a discovery sanction. The court acknowledged that the (CUTSA) “state procedure does not govern here,” yet it applied the CUTSA’s “reasonable particularity” rule “to nail down [Quintara’s] asserted trade secrets . . . [and] permit [the court] to discern the reasonable bounds of discovery.” After discovery was completed and a jury trial was conducted on the remaining trade secrets, a verdict was returned for Ruifeng. Quintara appealed.
The Ninth Circuit’s Order
A Ninth Circuit panel of Judges Lawrence VanDyke, Anthony D. Johnson, and District Judge Dana L. Christensen (sitting by designation) reversed Judge Alsup’s order. At the outset, the Ninth Circuit acknowledged that, because trade secrets derive their value from nondisclosure, discovery involving trade secrets presents certain challenges. Plaintiffs may have commercially valid reasons to avoid overly specific disclosures of their intellectual property at the outset of a case. Defendants likewise may share similar concerns about turning over proprietary information in discovery. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure give a trial court significant discretion to manage these issues in discovery including through ordering that “trade secrets be revealed only in a specified way” under Rule 26(c)(1)(G).
However, neither the trial court’s powers to make such an order and manage discovery, nor the narrow grounds for striking material under Rule 12(f), permitted the trial court to hold a DTSA plaintiff to the standard under CUTSA, including CUTSA’s required (pre-discovery) disclosures. Instead, parties must be given the opportunity to refine and clarify the identification of trade secrets through discovery, and any dispute of whether the disclosures are ultimately made with “sufficient particularity” as required by the DTSA is a question of fact to be resolved on summary judgment or at trial.
The Ninth Circuit explained that instead of proceeding as the trial court did, a court facing unmanageably vague disclosures might grant a protective order tailoring discovery to the identification of trade secrets. Once discovery is conducted, if a party still fails to appropriately define its trade secrets, the court may exclude any added specifications from consideration on summary judgment or at trial. If after discovery there is no genuine issue of material fact as to whether some or all of the trade secrets are sufficiently particularized, then the court grant summary judgment. If, however, as the Ninth Circuit has made clear in past rulings, there remains a genuine question as to whether or not a party has identified a protectable trade secret, including by defining it with sufficient particularity, then that question is to be left for the jury to decide at trial. See InteliClear, LLC v. ETC Glob. Holdings, Inc., 978 F.3d 653, 659 (9th Cir. 2020). Regardless, the parties must receive an opportunity to conduct discovery.
Conclusion
For potential trade secret plaintiffs in California, this decision counsels caution when considering whether to bring a CUTSA claim, given the attendant strict early disclosure requirements, which are not applicable if a party brings a claim under the DTSA only. It also may provide a broader strategic advantage to plaintiffs who can seek wide discovery on high-level trade secrets, hoping such discovery will reveal more specific proprietary information that was used by their competitor, allowing the plaintiff to amend their disclosures and thereby meet DTSA’s “sufficient particularity” standard by the time a motion for summary judgment is decided, and the case is tried. Accordingly, the order also imposes additional challenges for trade secret defendants within the Ninth Circuit who, in the absence of a CUTSA claim, will have increased difficulty enlisting federal trial courts as gatekeepers against vague trade secret claims.
