The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a judgment awarding damages and a permanent injunction, finding that the plaintiff’s trade secret misappropriation claims were barred by the statute of limitations under the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA). Insulet Corp. v. EOFlow, Co. Ltd., Case No. 25-1807 (Fed. Cir. May 28, 2026) (Dyk, Reyna, JJ.) (Prost, J., dissenting).

Insulet manufactures the Omnipod, an adhesive wearable insulin patch pump currently sold in 25 countries. EOFlow developed a competing product, the EOPatch 2, marketed in Europe and South Korea. On August 3, 2023, Insulet filed suit against EOFlow alleging trade secret misappropriation under the DTSA and patent infringement.

The misappropriation allegedly occurred when EOFlow hired several former Insulet employees to develop the EOPatch 2. The employees included Steve DiIanni, former director of mechanical engineering at Insulet, who possessed “detailed technical information” about the Omnipod. Between March and May 2018, DiIanni provided EOFlow with computer-aided design (CAD) files and information regarding the Omnipod’s soft cannula and occlusion-detection algorithm.

The district court bifurcated the DTSA and patent claims. At trial on the DTSA claims, the jury found misappropriation of four trade secrets, including the Omnipod CAD files, and concluded that none of Insulet’s claims were barred by the statute of limitations. The jury initially awarded $170 million in compensatory damages and more than $280 million in exemplary damages. These amounts were reduced to $26 million and $34 million, respectively, with the district court’s grant of a permanent injunction. Insulet’s patent claims were dismissed without prejudice.

On appeal, Insulet moved to transfer to the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The Federal Circuit denied the motion, concluding that it retained jurisdiction because the dismissal of the patent claims functioned, at least in part, as a dismissal with prejudice, since the statute of limitations expired with respect to certain alleged acts of patent infringement. The Court then addressed two issues under the DTSA statute of limitations: when the statute of limitations begins to run and whether related trade secrets are subject to a single accrual date.

On the first issue, the parties disputed the applicable standard. EOFlow argued that the statute of limitations began to run under an inquiry-notice standard while Insulet contended that the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Merck & Co. v. Reynolds required application of a discovery standard under which the limitations period begins when the plaintiff discovers or reasonably should have discovered the facts underlying its claim. The Federal Circuit declined to decide which standard governed, concluding that Insulet’s claims were time-barred even under the more demanding Merck standard. Applying an access-plus-similarity framework, the Court found that, before the critical date, Insulet knew or should have known that EOFlow had access to its trade secrets through a former Insulet employee, and possessed sufficient information regarding similarities between the EOPatch 2 and Insulet’s trade secret technology to plead a misappropriation claim.

On the second issue, for which there was no controlling First Circuit authority, the Federal Circuit determined that the [...]

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