First off, don’t worry, Coca-Cola’s super-secret trade secret recipe is still safe. But on April 22, 2021, a jury in the Eastern District of Tennessee convicted a former Coca-Cola employee, Dr. Xiaorong (a/k/a Shannon) You, of stealing trade secrets related to BPA-free coatings for the inside of beverage cans for the Chinese Government. The Indictment alleged that the trade secret information cost almost $120 million to develop. The twelve-day in-person trial focused not just on the former employee’s wrong doing, but also on some the best practices Coca-Cola and Eastman Chemical Company used to protect the trade secrets at issue.
Continue Reading Former Coca-Cola Employee Convicted of Stealing Trade Secrets for the Chinese Government
Under the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act (CUTSA), and many other states’ trade secret acts, a plaintiff must identify its alleged trade secrets as a prerequisite to conducting discovery. Cal. Civ. Code § 2019.210. The Ninth Circuit recently held that the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) also includes this requirement to identify alleged trade secrets with sufficient particularity. The Ninth Circuit was considering whether the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California had abused its discretion in granting summary judgment for a defendant on CUTSA and DTSA claims by finding that the plaintiff had not identified its trade secrets with sufficient particularity without any discovery. (Spoiler alert: It did.)
On August 6, 2020, the U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) released a public version of the Final Initial Determination (“ID”) in the Matter of Botulinum Toxin Products (Inv. No. 337-TA-1145), that, if upheld by the ITC Commission, might signal an expansive view of the ITC’s territorial jurisdiction and the scope of trade secret protection. The ITC’s jurisdiction in trade secret investigations is limited to matters that destroy or substantially injure a “domestic industry in the United States.” An interesting aspect of the ID is that it recommends banning importation of a Botox-competitor product (Jeuveau®) that was found to incorporate misappropriated trade secrets of a foreign Complainant whose domestic licensee and Co-Complainant have yet to make any sales of that product in the United States. The ID also found “domestic injury” based on the licensee’s industry, not the licensed trade secret’s industry. The Commission will issue a final decision in November.
A federal judge in Colorado 
On October 7, 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) issued a 
China’s National People’s Congress has released a draft law for comment that would impose harsher criminal penalties for any trade secret theft from Chinese companies that benefits foreign companies.
Companies looking to protect valuable trade secrets and confidential information routinely employ multiple precautions ranging from employee training to technological safeguards.
A recent case is a helpful reminder to companies with valuable intellectual property to be diligent in protecting trade secrets and monitoring compliance by employees with access to this confidential information.
On May 6, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine denied plaintiff Alcom’s request for a temporary restraining order (“TRO”), which sought to enjoin a competitor’s alleged misappropriation of trade secrets. The court denied the request for a TRO, holding that Alcom’s speculation about the potential harm it would suffer absent the TRO was not enough to show a likelihood of irreparable harm, as required to obtain a TRO. The case serves as a reminder that when proving irreparable harm, courts require more than just speculation.
When does a cause of action come close enough to a trade secret claim to become preempted by the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act (“CUTSA”)? CUTSA preempts statutory and common law claims “based upon misappropriation of a trade secret.” In other words, with some exceptions, claims predicated on trade secret misappropriation allegations may only be asserted through a CUTSA claim.