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.
For this installment of Readily Ascertainable, we cover decisions addressing trade secret ownership under the DTSA, the evidence sufficient to show irreparable harm from misappropriation, whether trade secret protection extends to data compilations derived from public and commercial information, and the consequences of publicly disclosing or revealing alleged trade secrets.
September 2026
UEC Holdings, Inc. v. Hatcher, -- F.4th --, 2026 WL 2755021 (6th Cir. Sept. 17, 2026)
Sixth Circuit vacates trade secret preliminary injunction, holding allegations of future competitive injury were speculative and forensic examination was not narrowly tailored.
Plaintiffs (an electrical construction and utility-services company and its parent) sued Defendants (a former executive and the executive’s new employer) under the DTSA and Kentucky law. The suit alleges that the former executive shared company pricing information, rate materials, and other confidential business information with his new employer before his termination. The district court granted a preliminary injunction that, among other things, (1) prohibited Defendants from performing work for one of Plaintiffs’ customers and (2) required an independent forensic examiner to image and search a broad range of Defendants’ electronic devices and accounts.
The Sixth Circuit vacated the injunction, holding that Plaintiffs failed to establish irreparable harm sufficient to justify the restriction on Defendants’ work for the third-party customer. The court rejected as unduly speculative the district court’s finding that Plaintiffs would suffer future competitive injury, given that (1) the record suggested Plaintiffs currently lacked the capacity to perform future work for the customer and that Defendants had not taken any business from Plaintiffs, and (2) there were no allegations of ongoing trade secret misappropriation, which otherwise may have been relevant to injunctive relief to prevent loss of goodwill and competitive disadvantage.
The Sixth Circuit also vacated the injunction’s forensic examination requirement on the grounds that it was overbroad. The district court’s order did not narrow the scope of forensic imaging to only those devices likely to contain relevant information and instead ordered examination of “all [of Defendants’] relevant data sources,” including “computers, external drives, mobile phones, and cloud accounts,” to “retrieve [Defendant]-generated data.” This phrasing, the Sixth Circuit observed, lacked any limitation as “to what custodians, devices, and information the examination” extended and lacked a definition for “what information is relevant or responsive.” The court also found that the district court’s order did not include safeguards to protect Defendants’ own trade secrets and other confidential or personal information.
Hwang v. La Colombe Torrefaction, Inc., 2026 WL 2608192 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 3, 2026)
Pennsylvania district court holds exclusive trade secret licensee may sue trade secret licensor under the DTSA.
Plaintiffs (two entrepreneurs) are the exclusive licensees of Defendants’ business system and related intellectual property. They filed suit against Defendants under federal law, alleging Defendants had improperly disclosed trade secret information and related know-how to a third party operating in Plaintiffs’ exclusive territory. The district court denied Defendants’ motion to dismiss, rejecting the argument that a trade secret licensor who owns a trade secret can never be sued for misappropriation of their own alleged secret. Relying on the text of the DTSA, the court concluded that a party with an exclusive license to a trade secret could qualify as an owner. Accordingly, the court found that a DTSA claim may proceed where an exclusive licensee alleges that another owner or co-owner used or disclosed trade secrets in a manner inconsistent with the licensee’s exclusive rights.
Apollo Information Systems Corp. v. St. John, --F. Supp.3d --, 2026 WL 2908100 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 28, 2026)
Northern District of California court holds that cybersecurity company’s system through which it collects, analyzes, and makes use of its compilation of data plausibly constitutes a trade secret.
Plaintiff (a cybersecurity company) sued two former employees under the DTSA, alleging that Defendants used Plaintiff’s cybersecurity intelligence platform, proprietary data, and confidential information to develop competing products and then sold those products back to Plaintiff through companies they controlled. Plaintiff asserted several features of its platform constitute trade secrets, including its (1) dark-web personas (i.e., fictitious online identities) used to collect threat intelligence and the information associated with those personas; (2) analyzed and “functional” cybersecurity data generated from collected public and commercial information; and (3) proprietary processes and methodology used to collect, analyze, and synthesize that information into actionable intelligence.
Defendants moved to dismiss Plaintiff’s claim, arguing (among other things) that the information identified did not constitute a trade secret. The court denied the motion, finding that the overall system through which Plaintiff collects, analyzes, and makes use of its compilation of data plausibly constitutes a trade secret.
As to the dark-web personas, for example, the court reasoned that Apollo’s claimed trade secret lay both in the association of the identities with a cybersecurity firm and in the development and characteristics of those personas. The court rejected Defendants’ argument that these identities were public because they interacted with third parties, noting that not all of the information was disclosed in those interactions, and in fact, “the value of the personas almost certainly derives from the fact that [Plaintiff] does not disclose to others on the dark web that the personas are associated with a cybersecurity firm.”
As to Plaintiff’s claim of trade secrecy over information that came from commercially licensed data, the district court found it plausible that Plaintiff operated on that data to make it usable in ways that provide independent economic value and, thus, the mere fact that it originated with a third-party commercial provider does not necessarily deprive the manipulated data of trade secret protection. Similarly, with respect to Plaintiff’s “data lake,” the district court found Plaintiff’s “treatment” of the data in the “data lake” could qualify for protection because the work Plaintiff had done to process and interpret the data added independent value.
Finally, the court likewise rejected Defendants’ arguments that “processing, interpreting, and analyzing raw data into functional data” does not constitute a trade secret. The court reasoned that transformation of raw data by compiling it into economically useful “functional data” is sufficient to allege a trade secret. The court also emphasized that trade secret protection may extend to a unique compilation of information and methods, and that Plaintiff plausibly alleged that the value of its cybersecurity platform derived from its confidential combination of personas, data, analytical techniques, and intelligence-generation processes.
CreateAI Holdings, Inc. v. Bot Auto TX Inc., 2026 WL 2694693 (Tex. App. Sept. 15, 2026)
Texas appellate court affirms denial of temporary injunction where alleged autonomous-truck sensor configuration had been publicly disclosed and was readily observable.
Plaintiff (formerly an autonomous trucking company) sued Defendant under Texas law, alleging misappropriation of multiple trade secrets relating to Plaintiff’s autonomous vehicle technology. That technology included Plaintiff’s proprietary sensor suite, which used lidar sensors to detect and map the vehicle’s surroundings. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court denied Plaintiff’s request for a temporary injunction and dissolved a previously entered temporary restraining order.
On appeal, the appellate court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding that Plaintiff failed to demonstrate a probable right to recover on its sensor array trade secret claim. The appellate court reasoned that the sensor array had been publicly revealed—the sensors were visible on the trucks themselves, “housed on the outside of the truck in plain sight.” The court also relied on the fact that Plaintiff had further disclosed the types and locations of sensors in a 2022 investor presentation. Finally, the court observed that Defendant’s sensors (and other alleged trade secret systems) differed materially from Plaintiff’s model, mounting height, and function, preventing Plaintiff from showing likely misappropriation regardless of whether the sensors could be considered a trade secret.
