Trade Secret Affirmative Defenses Affirmative defenses are often used in court when a defendant can provide evidence negating liability. This is even the case if all claims from the complaint are proven true.
Under TUTSA and DTSA, a plaintiff who successfully proves trade secret misappropriation can obtain several types of remedies, including injunctive relief, monetary damages, and, in certain cases, punitive damages.
A court may grant an injunction to prevent any actual or threatened misappropriation, provided that the injunction does not “prevent a person from entering into an employment relationship,” and that any conditions placed on employment are based on “evidence of threatened misappropriation and not merely on the ...
(a) A person must bring suit for misappropriation of trade secrets not later than three years after the misappropriation is discovered or by the exercise of reasonable diligence should have been discovered.
Defenses to a Misappropriation Lawsuit You will need to use your own files and records to prove that you completed development before any dates on which the alleged misappropriation occurred. Related, but less strong, is a defense of reverse engineering.
This doctrine holds that a third party is liable when the third party acquires a trade secret from another and then discloses or uses the secret under circumstances where he knows or should have known that the trade secret was wrongfully acquired.
One way of showing misappropriation is by showing that an acquirer knew or had reason to know that the trade secret was acquired by improper means but the trade secret is acquired or retained. Disclosure or Use of Trade Secret as Misuse.
The plaintiff in a trade-secret case lawsuit must prove three facts: (1) it has some valuable business information that it has kept secret; (2) the information is not generally known; and (3) the defendant has used that secret. A defendant may attack each showing, but some attacks are better than others.
A court may grant an injunction to prevent any actual or threatened misappropriation, provided that the injunction does not “prevent a person from entering into an employment relationship,” and that any conditions placed on employment are based on “evidence of threatened misappropriation and not merely on the ...