Welcome to WilmerHale’s bulletin on recent trade secret case law and relevant news items. We’ve affectionately nicknamed it “Readily Ascertainable” because, unlike a trade secret, it should be easy to figure out. If you have any questions about these cases or the legal issues they implicate, our trade secret experts would be delighted to answer them.
This month, we cover decisions addressing the requirement for a plaintiff to define trade secrets with sufficient particularity, refining the standard for irreparable harm in the trade secret context, and imposing sanctions for the spoliation of internal documentation that could have been used to prove access to an alleged trade secret.
Coda Dev. s.r.o. v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 160 F.4th 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2025)
The Federal Circuit affirms ruling by Northern District of Ohio court that Goodyear was not liable for trade secret misappropriation relating to self-inflating tire technology.
Following a jury trial that found in favor of Coda and awarded $2.8 million in compensatory damages and $61.2 million in punitive damages for the misappropriation of five trade secrets, the district court granted Goodyear’s motion for judgment as a matter of law because the trade secrets were not described with sufficient particularity, were not secret, and/or were not used by the defendant.
Of particular note, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling that Coda failed to identify four asserted trade secrets with sufficient particularity. For example, the court explained that one of the asserted trade secrets merely listed functional capabilities of a self-inflating tire interface without describing the underlying “design and development” knowledge that actually constituted the alleged trade secret. The court found that two other asserted trade secrets suffered from the same defect, amounting to undifferentiated compilations of components described in broad, ambiguous terms, with no disclosure of the precise information Coda sought to protect. And as to the remaining asserted trade secret, the Federal Circuit concluded that it was either already known (because it was disclosed in a patent application and a journal article) or not defined with sufficient particularity (because Coda was trying to read in limitations not present in the secret’s description).
Archetype Cap. Partners, LLC v. Bullock Legal Grp., LLC, No. 2:25-CV-01686-GMN-BNW, 2025 WL 3500688 (D. Nev. Dec. 5, 2025)
Northern District of Nevada court grants preliminary injunction for misappropriation of litigation finance trade secrets.
In this trade secret case, plaintiff Archetype, a litigation funder, moved for a preliminary injunction on the grounds that a former co-founder (Mr. Schneider) had used Archetype’s proprietary models for underwriting and reviewing mass tort litigation to benefit his current employer (Bullock Legal Group).
While the district court concluded that Archetype established a likelihood of success on the merits of its misappropriation claim, the court rejected Archetype’s assertion that it had suffered irreparable harm simply because Mr. Schneider retained a company-issued laptop that included Archetype’s alleged trade secrets and other proprietary information. Specifically, the court noted that “mere possession of a laptop that contains confidential information” is “too speculative to form the basis for irreparable harm.” The court was, however, persuaded by Archetype’s other irreparable harm arguments which were related to the effects of the purported misappropriation on Archetype’s market position (e.g., Archetype alleged the misappropriation enabled Bullock to dramatically expand the number of cases it was able to take on and to secure a multi-billion-dollar settlement with Defendant X).
Of significance, the court’s preliminary injunction not only enjoined Mr. Schneider from using or disclosing Archetype’s asserted trade secrets but also froze the distribution of the share of settlement funds belonging to Mr. Schneider and any party acting in concert with him (like Bullock). The court reasoned that Mr. Schneider’s disclosure and Bullock’s use of Archetype’s trade secrets regarding video game addiction litigation had improved Bullock’s position against the defendant.
FinancialApps, LLC v. Envestnet, Inc., et al., C.A. No. 19-1337-JLH-CJB, 2025 WL 3764751 (D. Del. Dec. 30, 2025)
District of Delaware court issues an evidentiary sanction for spoliation of evidence relevant to trade secret access.
In this trade secret case, the district court imposed an evidentiary sanction on the defendants on the grounds that they destroyed log data that would have shown which individuals had access to the alleged trade secrets at the time of the purported misappropriation. The court was not persuaded by the defendants’ arguments that the only evidence establishing intent/bad faith was circumstantial. Instead, the court emphasized that (1) the defendants made a deliberate decision to destroy certain log files six days after being sued, (2) the cost of maintaining the data would have been negligible, and (3) the destroyed evidence “would have likely been some of the best evidence of” misappropriation. As a result, the court ordered that (A) the spoliation could be discussed at trial and (B) the jury could presume that the destroyed evidence—had it been presented—would have been unfavorable to the defendants.
