
I had a trial this month, so I was delayed in my wrap up of noteworthy developments from November. Here they are:
Noteworthy Defend Trade Secrets Act Cases, Federal Trade Secrets Opinions and Related Commentary:
- Who would have thought a case about broccoli seeds could sprout so many interesting legal issues? Certainly not me. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit just issued an opinion in Caudill Seed & Warehouse Co. v. Jarrow Formulas, Inc., that is, to quote the jurist Robert Bork, a veritable “intellectual feast” of trade secret issues. In the culmination of a nearly-decade long dispute, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the verdict and several rulings by the district court about the viability of trade secrets arising from the collective research for those broccoli seeds. The opinion is worth reading for several reasons. In particular, the opinion provides guidance on what needs to be shown to assert a combination trade secret, which is a trade secret composed of multiple publicly available elements. The Sixth Circuit held that because a combination trade secret has those publicly available elements, the trade secret owner must make an additional showing that the combination trade secret is unique, a requirement normally not imposed on other trade secrets. The opinion is also noteworthy for its analysis of what needs to be shown for misappropriation of a combination trade secret as well for its analysis of the damages related to the defendant’s saved costs in connection with the research and development of those broccoli seeds. For other takes on the Sixth Circuit’s opinion, check out Anthony Ferrara’s post for McDermott Will & Emery’s trade secrets section for its IP Update Blog and Siena Sylvester’s post for Sheppard Mullin’s Trade Secrets Law Blog.
- And while we’re on the topic of an opinion covering multiple interesting trade secret issues, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California has issued a highly factual decision that addresses, among other things, the intersection of a researcher’s general skill and knowledge and his former employer’s confidential research information. In Masimo Corp. v. True Wearables, Inc., Judge James Selna issued an injunction restraining the former researcher and his current company from using trade secrets arising from pulse oximetry, which involves measuring oxygen in the blood. The opinion addresses a range of tricky issues such as the use of trade secrets from memory, the concept of independent development and a good discussion of the affirmative defense of what is readily ascertainable under California law, but I found Judge Selna’s application of the “person of ordinary skill in the art” test to differentiate the former employee’s general skill and knowledge to be particularly important. Courts have grappled with tests to distinguish an employee’s general skill and knowledge from an employer’s trade secrets, and so far as I can tell, this is the first time that a court has used this objective test from the patent world to separate the two categories of information.
- IBM scored a major victory in a dispute brought by a Chinese venture capital partner against one of IBM’s Chinese affiliates, securing the dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim for relief and lack of personal jurisdiction grounds. In a post for The IP Watchdog, Alex Pronk summarizes the ruling in Beijing Neu Cloud Oriental System Tech. Co., Ltd. v. International Business Machines Corporation, in which U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Alvin Hellerstein found that (a) the plaintiff had failed to adequately identify the trade secrets at issue (confidential customer information), and (b) that the information was “available through public and independent sources”, reasoning “it is implausible that [IBM] would not be able to identify potential users of IBM technology without [Beijing Neu Cloud] having identified some of them.”
- Would you like insurance coverage for your trade secrets case? Then you should review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit’s opinion in Lionbridge Tech., LLC v. Valley Forge Ins. Co., which held that a trade secret claim that allegedly caused reputational damage to the plaintiff triggered defamation coverage for what were otherwise traditional trade secret claims. Hannah Cohen details the opinion for the Trade Secrets section of McDermott Will & Emery’s IP Update Blog.
- Here’s a head-scratcher out of California dismissing a statute of limitations defense. In Pinkerton Tobacco v. Kretek Int’l, the defendant Kretek produced evidence that plaintiff knew in 2016 that Kretek was importing and selling a competing device that included the trade secrets, knew that another party (Ericsson) was involved in the manufacture of that device, and suspected that Ericsson was using the trade secrets to manufacture the device that he had sold to the plaintiff. As a result, Kretek moved for summary judgment, arguing the plaintiff’s claim was barred by the three-year statute of limitations because the plaintiff knew that the device was manufactured using its trade secrets. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, however, denied the motion, reasoning that the defendant had only shown that the plaintiff had knowledge that the product was manufactured using misappropriated trade secrets, as opposed to demonstrating that the defendant had the requisite knowledge of the trade secrets themselves. Mark Klapow and Ryan Fitzgerald have a post for Crowell’s Trade Secret Trends Blog on this curious decision.
- Wrestling with what you need to plead to ensure that your DTSA claim satisfies the interstate commerce requirement? Then check out U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio Judge Bridget Brennan’s opinion in Health Care Facilities Partners, LLC v. Diamond, which lays out the particulars required to satisfy that pleading requirement.