Keker, Van Nest & Peters partner Katie Lynn Joyce and associate Catherine Porto discuss the unique challenges that trade secret plaintiffs face while navigating the complex terrain of trade secret litigation and how to avoid these potential pitfalls in a recent article featured by Reuters Legal.
Katie Lynn and Catherine urge trade secret plaintiffs to develop a damages model that can be tailored to the shifting landscape of trade secrets litigation. Plaintiffs must establish a causal link between the misappropriated trade secret and the damages sought. There’s a large risk of overestimation as demonstrated by the case of 02 Micro Intern. Ltd. v. Monolithic Power Sys., Inc., 399 F. Supp. 2d 1064 (N.D. Cal. 2005), where an inflated damages calculation led to a jury verdict dismissal due to insufficient bases for apportionment.
Katie Lynn and Catherine also discuss the significance in ensuring that plaintiffs develop sufficient factual and expert evidentiary records to support head start theory and avoid being zeroed out on damages as they dissect the case Allfax Holding Spa v. Alcor Sci. Inc., No. 14-440 (D.R.I. Feb. 18, 2022), where the court agreed that the plaintiff had no admissible evidence, absent the expert’s opinion, to support an award.
Katie Lynn and Catherine advise plaintiffs seeking unjust enrichment damages to frame requests as legal rather than equitable relief and characterize unjust enrichment as a type of monetary damages. The categorization has significant impacts on the case’s trajectory as evident in Texas Advanced Optoelectronic Solutions, Inc. v. Renesas Electronics America, Inc., 895 F. 3d 1304, 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2018) and TCL Commc’n Tech. Holdings Ltd. v. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, 943 F.3d 1360, 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2019). In both cases, the trade secret plaintiff’s right to a jury trial was under question while arguing whether the request sought legal or equitable relief.
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