IP UPDATE
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Results for "Trade secret"
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No Service, No Notice

by | Sep 2, 2021 |

Addressing the notice requirements of Fed. R. of Civ. Pro. 65(a)(1), the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit vacated a preliminary injunction, finding that the aggrieved party did not have sufficient notice of the possibility of a preliminary injunction. Document Operations, L.L.C., v. AOS Legal Tech., Inc., Case No. 20-20388 (5th Cir. Aug. 23, 2021) (Per Curiam) (unpublished).

In 2017, Doc. Ops. entered into a licensing agreement by which AOS Japan would serve as the company’s exclusive representative and marketing provider in Japan for its virtual data room technology. Later, Doc. Ops. learned that a competing product known as AOS VDR had been developed by AOS Korea and would soon be marketed in the two Asian countries. Despite protests from AOS Japan that AOS Korea developed AOS VDR independently, Doc. Ops. filed suit alleging violation of the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act and for common law breach of contract, fraudulent inducement, conversion, civil conspiracy and breach of fiduciary duty.

The licensing agreement mandated that AOS Japan protect Doc. Ops.’ confidential information and also prohibited AOS Japan from acting to “represent, promote, develop, or otherwise try to sell within [Japan] any lines of product that. . . compete with [the technology].” Doc. Ops. sought a temporary restraining order (TRO) as well as preliminary injunction and filed and emailed copies of the complaint and TRO motion to AOS representatives. Once a Zoom hearing was scheduled, Doc. Ops. again contacted AOS to inform it of the hearing date. When AOS failed to appear at the hearing, the district court chose to reschedule the hearing three weeks later in order to ensure that AOS was aware of the hearing.

During this three-week interval, Doc. Ops. continued to communicate relevant dates and filings with AOS, which had appointed Texas-based counsel. One of these communications included a letter from Doc. Ops. to the district court stating that if the district court granted its TRO motion, Doc. Ops. would seek to conduct limited expedited discovery to prepare for a subsequent preliminary injunction. AOS failed to appear at the second hearing, stating that it would not appear until served with process. Subsequently, the district court not only granted the TRO motion and the related request for expedited discovery but also issued a preliminary injunction against AOS. AOS appealed both the preliminary injunction and the order granting expedited discovery.

The Fifth Circuit first explained that Rule 65 requires sufficient notice for a preliminary injunction, which the Supreme Court of the United States has interpreted as implying a hearing where the defendant is given a fair opportunity to oppose the preliminary injunction. The Court contrasted the notice requirement for preliminary injunctions from the more informal notice requirement for TROs. While TRO hearings are sometimes converted into preliminary injunction hearings, this conversion has two requirements: Sufficient notice and an opportunity to meaningfully prepare and respond.

The Fifth Circuit found that while AOS certainly had notice that a preliminary injunction was looming, it lacked sufficient notice that this relief would [...]

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Absent Proof of Government Ownership on an EEA Sovereign Immunity Defense is All Black and White

by | Aug 5, 2021 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of a motion to dismiss an indictment, charging four Chinese companies with violations of the criminal provisions of the Economic Espionage Act (EEA) and finding no sovereign immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) in view of the defendant’s commercial activities and failure of proof. United States of America v. Pangang Group Company Ltd. et al., Case No. 19-10306 (9th Cir. July 26, 2021) (Collins, J.)

No company in China had been able to develop a clean and efficient technology to produce titanium dioxide, a white pigment used in products such as paints, sunscreen, lotions, paper and plastics. A group of related Chinese steel companies (collectively, the Pangang companies) wanted to obtain such technology.

In the United States, after many years of research and development, DuPont had managed to develop a process to produce titanium dioxide and was unwilling to sell or license the technology to Chinese companies. Chinese government officials approached US businessman and former DuPont research engineer Walter Liew to obtain DuPont’s trade secrets. Liew agreed to become a corporate spy and managed to gain access to DuPont’s technology. Liew unlawfully transferred the trade secrets to the Pangang companies. The Pangang companies also conspired with unknown computer hackers to access DuPont’s computers to further steal DuPont’s trade secrets.

The Pangang companies were indicted on one count of conspiring to commit economic espionage for the benefit of a foreign government or instrumentality to steal DuPont’s trade secrets and one count of attempting to commit such economic espionage in violation of the EEA. The Pangang companies pleaded not guilty and moved to dismiss a criminal indictment for violations of the EEA, arguing that they were “instrumentalities” of the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and were entitled to sovereign immunity under the FSIA. The district court denied the motion, holding that the Pangang companies were not immune in light of the FSIA’s commercial activity and waiver exceptions. The Pangang companies appealed.

The Ninth Circuit found that the Pangang companies failed to show that they were instrumentalities of a foreign sovereign within the meaning of the FSIA. For a company to be considered a foreign instrumentality under FSIA, a government must own the majority shares in the company. The indictment included several allegations about the ownership structure of the Pangang companies. The indictment alleged that the Pangang Group Company was a “state-owned enterprise controlled by the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council” (SASAC), a “special government agency” of the PRC. The other Pangang companies were alleged to be direct or indirect “subsidiaries” of the Pangang Group Company. The Ninth Circuit found that the allegations, taken as true, affirmatively negated the premise that the other Pangang companies could be considered agencies or instrumentalities of the PRC because the indictment described all three of these entities as being “subsidiaries” of the fourth defendant (i.e., the Pangang Group Company). Because the corporate law [...]

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USPTO Conducting Patent Eligibility Jurisprudence Study

by | Jul 15, 2021 |

At the request of Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC), Marie Hirono (D-HI), Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Chris Coons (D-DE), the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) is undertaking a study on the current state of patent eligibility jurisprudence in the United States and how the current jurisprudence has impacted investment and innovation, particularly in critical technologies like quantum computing, artificial intelligence, precision medicine, diagnostic methods and pharmaceutical treatments. On July 9, 2021, the USPTO issued a Federal Register Notice seeking public input on these matters to assist in preparing the study. The deadline for submitting written comments is September 7, 2021.

The Federal Register Notice included 13 concerns on which comments were requested:

  1. Explain how the current state of patent eligibility jurisprudence affects the conduct of business in your technology areas, and identify your technology areas.
  2. Explain what impacts you have experienced as a result of the current state of patent eligibility jurisprudence in the United States. Include impacts on as many of the following areas as you can, identifying concrete examples and supporting facts when possible:
    1. patent prosecution strategy and portfolio management;
    2. patent enforcement and litigation;
    3. patent counseling and opinions;
    4. research and development;
    5. employment;
    6. procurement;
    7. marketing;
    8. ability to obtain financing from investors or financial institutions;
    9. investment strategy;
    10. licensing of patents and patent applications;
    11. product development;
    12. sales, including downstream and upstream sales;
    13. innovation and
    14. competition.
  3. Explain how the current state of patent eligibility jurisprudence in the United States impacts particular technological fields, including investment and innovation in any of the following technological areas:
    1. quantum computing;
    2. artificial intelligence;
    3. precision medicine;
    4. diagnostic methods;
    5. pharmaceutical treatments and
    6. other computer-related inventions (e.g., software, business methods, computer security, databases and data structures, computer networking, and graphical user interfaces).
  4. Explain how your experiences with the application of subject matter eligibility requirements in other jurisdictions, including China, Japan, Korea, and Europe, differ from your experiences in the United States.
  5. Identify instances where you have been denied patent protection for an invention in the United States solely on the basis of patent subject matter ineligibility, but obtained protection for the same invention in a foreign jurisdiction, or vice versa. Provide specific examples, such as the technologies and jurisdictions involved, and the reason the invention was held ineligible in the United States or other jurisdiction.
  6. Explain whether the state of patent eligibility jurisprudence in the United States has caused you to modify or shift investment, research and development activities, or jobs from the United States to other jurisdictions, or to the United States from other jurisdictions. Identify the relevant modifications and their associated impacts.
  7. Explain whether the state of patent eligibility jurisprudence in the United States has caused you to change business strategies for protecting your intellectual property (e.g., shifting from patents to trade secrets, or vice versa). Identify the changes and their associated impacts.
  8. Explain whether you have changed your behavior with regard to filing, purchasing, licensing, selling, or maintaining patent applications and patents in the United States as a result of [...]

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Texas Citizens Participation Act Does Not Protect Communications About Private Transactions

by | May 27, 2021 |

The Texas Court of Appeals in the 14th Circuit denied an interlocutory appeal from the trial court’s denial of a motion to dismiss under the Texas Citizens Participation Act (TCPA), holding that TCPA does not protect communications concerning a private transaction between private parties. Post Acute Medical, LLC v. Meridian Hospital Systems Corporation, No. 14-19-00546-CV (Tex. App. – Houston [14th Distr.], May 18, 2021) (Wise, J.)

Meridian Hospital Systems developed and licensed web-based medical software to Post Acute Medical, PAM Physician Enterprise and Clear Lake Institute for Rehabilitation (collectively, PAM). Under the license, Meridian retained ownership of the software and reverse-engineering, as well as providing login information to third parties, were both prohibited. Meridian filed a complaint against PAM, alleging that PAM misappropriated Meridian’s trade secrets by entering into a contract with a third party to develop new software, and more specifically, by providing log-in information to the third party and “documenting” Meridian’s software to replicate its features. PAM moved to dismiss under the TCPA, but the trial court denied the motion. PAM filed an interlocutory appeal.

The Court of Appeals cited several cases to the effect that TCPA does not apply if the defendants’ communications concern a private transaction between private parties. The Court characterized PAM’s communications (among PAM entities and with the third party) as misappropriating Meridian’s software and breaching its contract with Meridian. Thus, it reasoned that the communications related to PAM’s entities reflected only a “common business interest,” not to “common interests” under TCPA, which are limited to public interests that relate to the community at large. Because Meridian could not meet its burden to show by a preponderance of the evidence that TCPA applied to Meridian’s claims, the court affirmed the denial of the motion to dismiss.

Practice Note: In this case, PAM advanced the same legal theory (i.e., that “common business interests” qualify as “common interests” under TCPA) that the same Texas appeals court had embraced in prior cases. It’s also a legal theory that a panel of the Texas Court of Appeals [1st Dist.] had embraced in the Gaskamp opinion that was subsequently vacated en banc (the Court here agreed with the en banc opinion in Gaskamp). The issue may still be appealed (whether in this case or another) to the Texas Supreme Court.



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US-China Agreement Supports International Injunction Against Alleged Chinese Counterfeiter Under State Law

by | Feb 4, 2021 |

Addressing for the first time whether state law has extraterritorial scope, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld a worldwide preliminary injunction against an alleged Chinese counterfeiter’s use of alleged trade secrets, citing a new US-China trade agreement. AtriCure, Inc. v. Meng, Case No. 20-3264 (6th Cir. Jan. 21, 2021) (McKeague, J.)

AtriCure is an Ohio company that sells surgical tools for the treatment of atrial fibrillation. AtriCure needed a Chinese agent to register and sell its product in China. Dr. Meng became AtriCure’s distributor in China from 2005 to 2017. After Meng signed multiple distribution agreements with AtriCure, including non-compete clauses and confidentiality agreements, he was given access to confidential technical documents describing AtriCure’s products. Unbeknownst to AtriCure, Meng was the president of AtriCure’s Chinese competitor, Med-Zenith. When Med-Zenith released a line of products that were strikingly similar to AtriCure’s in both form and operation, AtriCure sued for trade secret misappropriation under the Ohio Uniform Trade Secrets Act and sought a worldwide preliminary injunction to prevent Meng from continuing to manufacture and sell counterfeit versions of AtriCure’s medical devices. After the district court granted the preliminary injunction, Meng appealed.

Addressing Meng’s arguments on likelihood of success, the Sixth Circuit found that:

  • The district court defined the alleged trade secrets with sufficient specificity because AtriCure had given Meng detailed drawings and manufacturing specifications.
  • The district court had not clearly erred in relying on evidence that AtriCure provided the trade secret information to Meng or that Meng used the information where Med-Zenith had copied its entire product line from AtriCure.
  • The district court had not clearly erred in holding that the production of an adapter that did not copy but still took advantage of AtriCure’s proprietary algorithm (i.e., by allowing Med-Zenith accessories to be used with AtriCure’s system) was likely a misappropriation of trade secrets.

Addressing the extraterritorial aspect of a worldwide injunction, the Sixth Circuit held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in issuing a worldwide injunction because the international reach of the injunction comports with the equities of the case and does not offend international comity. As to the equities, the Court noted that worldwide injunctions are common in trade secret misappropriation cases. As to comity, the Court found that Meng had failed to articulate any conflict and cited a recently signed agreement between the United States and China that “emphasizes trade secret protection” (Economic and Trade Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the People’s Republic of China, Jan. 15, 2020).

Finally, the Court addressed whether the Ohio Uniform Trade Secrets Act itself was entitled to extraterritorial scope. Because Ohio courts had not yet addressed the question, the Court conducted its own statutory interpretation and found that the intent of the statute (“the lodestar of statutory interpretation in Ohio”) favored extraterritorial application “at least in this case.”



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Amended Opinion Hedges Constitutionality of Punitive Damages Award

by | Dec 10, 2020 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit amended its August 2020 opinion in Epic Systems v. Tata Consultancy to clarify that its analysis of punitive damages applies only to this particular case. Epic Systems Corp. v. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Case Nos. 19-1528, -1613 (7th Cir. Nov. 19, 2020) (Kanne, J.)

In the district court action, the jury found that Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS) used fraudulent means to access and steal Epic System’s trade secrets and other confidential information, and awarded $240 million in compensatory damages and $700 million in punitive damages. The district court reduced the compensatory damage award to $140 million and reduced the punitive damages award to $280 million based on a Wisconsin statutory cap on punitive damages. Both sides appealed.

On appeal, TCS contested the award of $280 million in punitive damages for various reasons, including that the award was not in line with the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. In its amended opinion, the Seventh Circuit clarified that “the Constitution is not the most relevant limit to a federal court when assessing punitive damages, as it comes into play only after the assessment has been tested against statutory and common law principles. . . . Indeed, a federal court can and should reduce a punitive damages award sometime before it reaches the outermost limits of due process.”

The Seventh Circuit analyzed the three “guideposts” for determining whether there is a due process violation with respect to punitive damages awards:

  • The reprehensibility of the defendant’s conduct
  • The disparity between the actual harm suffered and the punitive award
  • The difference between the award authorized by the jury and the penalties imposed in comparable cases.

The Court’s analysis of the first guidepost remained relatively unchanged from its original opinion, in which the Court found that a punitive damages award was justified.

The Seventh Circuit deviated from its original opinion in its analysis of the second and third guideposts. The Court found that determining the harm in the second guidepost was somewhat more difficult, because the $140 million compensatory award was based on benefit to TCS, not harm to Epic. However, the Court noted that in such instances, “few awards exceeding a single-digit ratio between punitive damages and compensatory damages will satisfy due process.” In its original opinion, the Court concluded that “a 2:1 ratio exceeds the outermost limit of the due process guarantee.” As amended, however, the Court softened this language and clarified that the 2:1 ratio exceeds only the outermost limit “in this case.” The Court explained that although TCS’s conduct was reprehensible, it was not egregious. The Court similarly concluded that the third guidepost warranted a 1:1 ratio of punitive to compensatory damages. Here again, while the Court’s original opinion applied to the “federal constitution,” the amended opinion reduced the scope of the holding to “this case” only.

Practice Note: While the Seventh Circuit originally seemed to indicate that any punitive damages award that exceeds a compensatory award [...]

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Making Waves: Post-Employment Contract Assignment Provision Invalid Under California Law

by | Dec 3, 2020 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit invoked “precedents that are relevant but not directly on point” to examine when employment contract provisions may require assignment of inventions conceived post-employment and without use of the former employer’s confidential information, finding that an intellectual property assignment provision in the employer’s predecessor’s employment agreement was void under California law. Whitewater West Industries, Ltd. v. Richard Alleshouse, et al., Case No. 19-1852 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 19, 2020) (Taranto, J.)

Richard Alleshouse began working for Wave Loch in 2007 as an engineer in the field of large-scale sheet-wave water attractions, which are surf and wave simulators sometimes seen on cruise ships and in water parks. Alleshouse’s many duties for the company included the inspection, assessment and improvement of the company’s wave rides; the development of new rides; and product management of the company’s branded FlowRider sheet wave attraction.

After almost five years with the company, Alleshouse consulted with a lawyer, Yong Yeh, regarding the scope of his employment agreement with Wave Loch, which included intellectual property assignment terms that survived termination of the employment agreement. Following that consultation, Alleshouse and Yeh discussed the idea of starting their own company to design sheet-wave attractions. In August 2012, Alleshouse resigned from Wave Loch, and in October 2012, Alleshouse and Yeh filed provisional patent applications that resulted in three different US patents describing and claiming certain “water attractions involving a flowing body of water on a surface” and “nozzle shapes and configurations which create a flowing body of water over a surface.”

In 2017, Whitewater West Industries, the successor to Wave Loch, sued Alleshouse, Yeh and their new company, Pacific Surf Design, in federal district court in California, asserting claims for breach of contract and correction of inventorship. In particular, Whitewater sought an assignment of the three patents under the terms of Alleshouse’s employment contract with Wave Loch, and claimed that Yeh was improperly listed as an inventor on each of the three patents. The district court ruled for Whitewater and found that the intellectual property assignment provision in Alleshouse’s employment agreement was valid and thus breached due to the failure to assign the patent rights at issue. Alleshouse appealed.

Alleshouse challenged the employment agreement’s intellectual property assignment provision as invalid under California Labor Code § 16600, which prohibits any contract provision that restrains a person from a lawful profession, trade or business, and under § 2870(a), which prohibits requiring an employee to assign over any invention that an employee developed entirely on her own time without using the employer’s equipment, supplies, facilities or trade secret information (with certain enumerated exceptions for employee inventions related to the employer’s business or the employee’s work for the business). The parties agreed on two factual points that were important to the Federal Circuit’s analysis on appeal: that the inventions at issue were not conceived until after Alleshouse left his job at Wave Loch, and that Alleshouse did not use any trade secret or confidential information belonging to Wave [...]

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Texas Appellate Court Clarifies Scope of Remand

by | Sep 9, 2020 |

The Texas Fourth Court of Appeals found that a new trial on misappropriation and fraud claims must include a non-appealed breach of contract claim arising from the same set of facts. Title Source, Inc. v. HouseCanary, Inc., Case No. 04-19-00044-CV (Tex. App. – San Antonio Aug. 26, 2020) (Watkins, J.).

On June 3, 2020, the Texas Fourth Court of Appeals issued an opinion remanding HouseCanary’s Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act and common-law fraud claims for a new trial because the jury instructions permitted the jury to consider both permissible and impermissible theories of recovery. (IP Update, June 18, 2020). Acting on Title Source’s motion for rehearing, the Court issued a substitute opinion with additional language clarifying the scope of the remand and making clear that HouseCanary may elect to recover on its non-appealed breach of contract claim and forego recovery (along with the new trial) on its misappropriation and fraud claims. To the extent HouseCanary sought to recover on its misappropriation and fraud claims, however, the Court held that the breach of contract claim must also be within the scope of the new trial because it arises from the same facts, and failing to include it would therefore create a risk of inconsistent verdicts.



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Epic Punitive Damages Award Violates Due Process

by | Sep 3, 2020 |

Addressing the appropriateness of three separate damages awards totaling $520 million, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the lower court’s award of $140 million in compensatory damages, but found that $280 million in punitive damages does not meet the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Epic Systems Corp. v. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Case Nos. 19-1528, 19-1613 (Aug. 20, 2020) (Kanne, J.).

Epic Systems is a leading developer of electronic health record software, which it licenses to top hospitals in the United States. Each customer-licensed module is specific to the customer’s needs and can be customized to ensure proper integration with the customer’s systems. In order to facilitate customization and updates to the software, Epic provides a web portal called “UserWeb,” which provides access to various resources including administrative guides, training materials, software updates and forums. UserWeb also contains confidential information about the health-record software itself, and as such, Epic restricts access to the UserWeb portal via credentialed logins. Those with access are also required to keep all UserWeb information confidential.

In 2003, Kaiser Permanente—the largest managed healthcare organization in the United States—obtained a license to use Epic’s software. Due to the size and complexity of integrating and maintaining the software, Kaiser hired Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to help with updates and integration. TCS has its own electronic health record software, Med Mantra, which was known to Epic. Accordingly, Kaiser imposed numerous rules for TCS to follow in order to maintain the confidentiality of Epic’s software. TCS employees claimed that they could perform their required tasks faster if they had full access to UserWeb, which Kaiser repeatedly asked Epic to grant to TCS. Epic repeatedly declined this request.

Undeterred, TCS was able to find another way into Epic’s UserWeb. TCS hired an employee who had full access to UserWeb, which he gained from working for a different organization that also helped manage Kaiser’s integration of Epic’s software. While in his previous position, the employee had falsely claimed to be a Kaiser employee, thus allowing him full access to UserWeb. The employee shared these credentials with numerous TCS employees, who then had unfettered access to UserWeb, which contained confidential information relating to Epic’s healthcare software.

TCS used this information to generate a “comparative analysis” document, an 11-page spreadsheet that compares TCS’s software, Med Mantra, to Epic’s software. TCS wanted to sell Med Mantra directly to Kaiser, and the first step was to be sure that “key gaps” in the Med Mantra software were addressed before the attempted sale. After viewing a presentation that included the comparative analysis document, one TCS employee alerted Kaiser and Epic to the existence of the document and the fact that TCS had gained access to UserWeb.

A few months later, Epic filed suit against TCS, alleging that TCS used fraudulent means to access and steal Epic’s trade secrets and other confidential information. After a trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Epic on all claims. During the damages trial, [...]

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Without Personal Jurisdiction or Causal Relationship, Wheels Come Off Misappropriation Claim

by | Jul 30, 2020 |

Without addressing the merits of the claim, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a trade secret misappropriation action based on lack of personal jurisdiction, finding no causal relationship between the competitors’ dealings in Illinois and the asserted claims. J.S.T. Corporation v. Foxconn Interconnect Technology Ltd., et al., Case No.19-2465 (7th Cir. July 13, 2020) (Barrett, J.).

In 2005, General Motors (GM) retained Robert Bosch LLC to build a part for some of GM’s cars. To build the part, Bosch required a connector. Bosch turned to JST to design and build the part, which it did for years, becoming the sole supplier of the product to Bosch. After buying 15 million connectors, Bosch allegedly tricked JST into handing over its proprietary technical schematics and designs under the guise that GM required the materials and Bosch would keep them confidential. Instead, Bosch allegedly gave the materials to JST’s competitors, Foxconn and TEC. According to JST, Foxconn and TEC accepted the designs, used them to produce a knockoff connector and displaced JST.

JST filed a lawsuit against TEC and Foxconn affiliates in Illinois for trade secret misappropriation under the Illinois Trade Secrets Act and for unjust enrichment. TEC and Foxconn moved to dismiss the case for lack of personal jurisdiction because none of the defendants were headquartered in Illinois or had a primary place of business there. Further, none of the defendants manufactured or sold the connector in Illinois. JST alleged that TEC and Foxconn sold the connectors to Bosch in Texas and in China, where Bosch installed them into the parts it sold to GM. The only connection to Illinois was the fact that GM sells cars with those parts to dealers in Illinois. Foxconn and TEC argued that this connection was too attenuated to support personal jurisdiction. The district court agreed and dismissed the action. JST appealed.

On appeal, JST asserted that Foxconn and TEC were subject to personal jurisdiction in Illinois because the cars containing the knockoff parts were sold in the state. Relying on the Supreme Court of the United States’ decision in World-Wide Volkswagen, JST argued that personal jurisdiction may be appropriate over “a corporation that delivers its products into the stream of commerce with the expectation that they will be purchased by consumers in the forum State.” The Seventh Circuit observed that its circuit is among those that apply the stream of commerce theory in products liability cases. The Court explained that in the context of a product liability case, the defendant takes steps to reach consumers in a forum state, and the underlying litigation alleges the development of a product that harms consumers.

The Seventh Circuit noted the differences between products liability claims and those involving trade secret misappropriation. The latter is not intrinsically linked to interactions with a consumer and can occur long before an offending product ever reaches a consumer in the forum. Based on the complaint, the Court found that even if Foxconn and [...]

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