4 Key Takeaways | Trade Secret Update 2024 Legal Developments and Trends
On April 4, 2025, the Eleventh Circuit reversed the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama’s ruling dismissing Alabama Aircraft Industries’ (“AAI”) trade secret misappropriation claim against Boeing, thereby...more
The Delaware Court of Chancery’s recent decision in In re Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp. IV Stockholder Litigation,1 marks the Chancery Court’s first total dismissal of a complaint alleging breaches of fiduciary duties in...more
The U.S. District Court for the North District of California dismissed four of six claims in a pair of cases alleging that the use by OpenAI, Inc. of the plaintiffs’ books infringed the copyrights in those books. Tremblay v....more
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed a district court’s dismissal of an unjust enrichment claim, finding that unjust enrichment claims do not necessarily rise or fall with trade secret misappropriation...more
Google has agreed to pay a whopping $155M to resolve a government investigation and a class action lawsuit stemming from its use of location data, including claims that it stored and collected consumers’ location-related...more
When it comes to protecting their interests – or the interests of the corporation – shareholders have unique rights to take legal action. They can file suit either on behalf of the corporation itself, known as a derivative...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed a district court’s finding of damages in a trade secrets case under Pennsylvania’s version of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. The Third Circuit explained that it is...more
Another diversity-based derivative suit was dismissed this week by a federal district court, joining a list of decisions that have rejected similar shareholder allegations. ...more
Last week, a shareholder of Danimer Scientific, Inc., filed a derivative suit against the company’s executives and board members, alleging that overstated sustainability claims led to millions of dollars in market...more
While the effects of the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in 1688782 Ontario Inc v Maple Leaf Foods Inc., 2020 SCC 35 [Maple Leaf], begin to reverberate in the decisions of lower courts, Justice Paul Perell's certification...more
Judge Edward R. Korman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York recently granted Mondelez Global’s motion to dismiss a putative class action challenging the advertising for its signature Oreo cookies....more
On August 20, 2020, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed a $140 million jury verdict in a published opinion reiterating the important role of unjust enrichment damages in compensating victims of trade...more
On May 20, 2020, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a proposed class action against General Mills for its alleged failure to disclose the presence of a harmful chemical in its Cheerios cereal....more
Where a business alleges that a former employee stole its confidential information and gave it to a competitor which then used it to compete, the business has no claim for unjust enrichment against the former employee or...more
Upsetting what many considered settled precedent, a California Court of Appeal has held that a mandatory service charge may qualify as a “gratuity” under California Labor Code Section 351 that must be distributed to the...more
An unbroken sequence of Delaware trial court decisions have reflected strong pro-policyholder leaning in insurance cases in furtherance of the state’s pro-business model. Following the most recent of these pro-policyholder...more
In a recent summary judgment ruling that has received little publicity, the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia may have quietly made a significant impact on damages law in the context of trade secret cases. ...more
On July 10, a federal judge in Washington, D.C., issued a significant opinion examining when food manufacturers accused of improperly using “non-functional slack fill” may be subject to class action litigation. See In Re:...more
An often sought remedy in trade secret cases is unjust enrichment, which DTSA and several uniform state trade secret acts permit plaintiffs to seek for the unlawful benefit received by defendants "that is not addressed in...more
After a weeklong June trial, a Texas federal jury awarded Six Dimensions, Inc. (“Six Dimensions”), a digital marketing firm, $287,000 for its breach-of-contract claim against its former employee but rejected its behemoth $50...more
According to Lex Machina’s 2018 Trade Secret Litigation Report, the number of trade secret cases pursued in U.S. federal courts has increased rapidly since the 2016 enactment of the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), which...more
The standards for determining when a party waives its right to arbitrate through participation in litigation have never been uniform among the circuits or easily applied. The recent Fifth Circuit opinion in Forby v. One...more
As we previously reported, courts continue to sift through the unsettled law left in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court of California. ...more
The Federal Circuit recently issued an opinion, Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions, Inc. v. Renesas Electronics America, Inc., that addressed several interesting issues impacting the calculation of damages in trade...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has held that allegations that the security provisions of a privacy policy were violated are sufficient for standing in a data breach case, but that plaintiffs’ contractual...more