Trade Secret Report

• Jurisdiction: California,United States
• Citation: Vol. 47 No. 4
• Publication year: 2022
• Author: Conor Tucker
• topic: Intellectual Property,Civil Procedure

TRADE SECRET REPORT

Conor Tucker
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

2022 Q3 TRADE SECRET CASES

This column addresses key developments in the law of the DTSA and California UTSA since the last publication.

TRADE SECRETS - DTSA PLEADING STANDARDS

LS3 Inc. v. Cherokee Nation Strategic Programs, LLC, 2022 WL 3440592 (10th Cir. Aug. 17, 2022).

In a lawsuit stemming from a bidding loss on a defense contract, the plaintiffs alleged that defendants (who won the defense contract) misappropriated trade secrets. The district court dismissed the trade secret allegations because the plaintiffs had not sufficiently identified what they claimed the defendants had taken. Plaintiffs argued on appeal that identifying which information constitutes a trade secret is "the function of the discovery process under a notice pleading standard." The 10th Circuit rejected that argument and affirmed dismissal, holding that "Under Iqbal, because LS3 failed to allege what trade secrets the Cherokee Defendants misappropriated, its allegations stop short of the line between...