4 Key Takeaways | Trade Secret Update 2024 Legal Developments and Trends
Following a recent trend to reduce large damages awards in trade secret misappropriation cases, a federal judge in Massachusetts cut Insulet Corp.’s damages award from $452 million to $59.4 million to avoid impermissible...more
Ed. Note: This is the fourth in a series of articles taken from Gavin Parsons' CLE presentation for the North Carolina Bar Association's Antitrust and Complex Business Dispute CLE Program presented on Thursday, January 30,...more
Takeaway: Unjust enrichment is one of the most commonly asserted causes of action in class actions seeking compensatory damages. Equitable considerations form the foundation of unjust enrichment claims under the laws of...more
Singapore-based XP Power has been ordered to pay $17 million in attorneys’ fees to opponent Comet Technologies, USA, following Comet’s victory at trial. The Northern District of California issued the order in January 2025,...more
Examining the issue of trade secret misappropriation when parties have contractually limited their liability from breach, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of the case,...more
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
A federal court in California recently granted a manufacturer’s motion to dismiss a distributor’s oral contract claims, but declined to dismiss claims for promissory estoppel and unjust enrichment. Cosmonova, LLC v. BioFilm,...more
A federal court recently rejected arguments by MultiPlan, Inc. and Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company that they had no obligation to ensure payments at the contractually negotiated, in-network rate to Anatomic and...more
In Dewberry Group, Inc. v. Dewberry Engineers, Inc., the Supreme Court unanimously held that the Lanham Act does not permit courts to disregard corporate identity when awarding damages for trademark infringement....more
For the second time, a New York federal district judge denied a motion for class certification filed by caustic soda purchasers, ruling that the plaintiffs had failed to meet the predominance requirement under Federal Rule of...more
The AirBoss saga continues… This holiday season, AirBoss Flexible Products Co. received a monumental legal victory, righting a costly wrong in MSSC, Inc. v. AirBoss. The Court awarded AirBoss nearly $3.5 million in damages,...more
In a trade secret misappropriation action, a complainant is required to prove the amount of its damages with reasonable certainty and that this amount has been caused by the misappropriation. Therefore, the trade secret...more
On July 30, 2024, the Court of Appeals of Virginia overturned a two billion dollar (yes, billion with a ‘b’) jury verdict in the Appian v. Pegasystems trade secret lawsuit. Although the Court of Appeals upheld the verdict of...more
The US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit largely affirmed a multimillion-dollar award against a temp agency for misappropriation of trade secrets and unjust enrichment due to its employee’s act of obtaining proprietary...more
A Fairfax County, Virginia, jury in May 2022 found that Pegasystems Inc. (Pegasystems) misappropriated trade secrets from its competitor, Appian Corp. (Appian), and awarded Appian more than $2 billion in damages – the largest...more
This is the second of two updates on the impact of Motorola Solutions, Inc. v. Hytera Communications Corp. Ltd., No. 22-2370, ___ F.4th ___ (7th Cir. 2024) on trade secret cases. The first update focused on the...more
Arkansas has adopted the Model Uniform Trade Secrets Act with some modifications. We refer to this as the Arkansas Uniform Trade Secrets Act (“AUTSA”) and it can be found at Ark. Code Ann. § 4-75-601, et seq....more
In Palmer v. Teva Canada Limited, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s decision to deny certification of a proposed product liability class action seeking damages for the alleged increased risk of being...more
Ohio- Enforceability of Arbitration Agreement- Bryan Costin v. Midwest Vision Partners LLC., 8th Dist. Cuyahoga No. 112651, 2024-Ohio-463. The Eighth District Court of Appeals recently affirmed the trial court’s ruling...more
The U.S. Supreme Court recently denied a trade secret owner's petition for certiorari in Trizetto Group, Inc. v. Syntel Sterling Best Shores Mauritius Limited. This leaves unresolved a question of when a wrongdoer's avoided...more
The United States Court of Appeals recently shed light on when—and under what conditions—a plaintiff may seek a monetary recovery under § 502(a)(3) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Section 502(a)(3)...more
On May 25, 2023, the Second Circuit issued an opinion in Syntel Sterling Best Shores Mauritius Ltd. v. TriZetto Group, Inc., No. 21-1370 (2d Cir. 2023) that provides guidance regarding recoverable damages in trade secret...more
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says it has taken its first-ever Clean Water Act (CWA) enforcement action against water pollution by so-called “forever chemicals” from a West Virginia chemical plant. On April...more
The Lanham Act- Lewis v. Acuity Real Estate Services, 6th Cir. 22-1406- In this appeal, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s decision dismissing the complaint under the Lanham Act because such a...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld a jury verdict finding a dietary supplement company liable for misappropriating another company’s research and development (R&D) related to broccoli-seed extract. Caudill...more