It’s common sense that, to protect a trade secret, the information must remain secret. However, when trade secret misappropriation claims arise and litigation ensues, the court and the parties involved need to understand at least the broad confines of the alleged trade secret. While the Federal pleading standard for a plaintiff’s complaint is the same regardless of what the trade secret may be—namely, that the plaintiff include sufficient particularity of the trade secret’s subject matter—what constitutes “sufficient particularity” will depend on the type of information alleged to be a trade secret. AlterG, Inc. v. Boost Treadmills LLC, a recent decision in the Northern District of California, highlighted this fact when the court found the plaintiff had adequately pleaded facts to describe one trade secret, but failed to do so for another. READ MORE
Pleading “Sufficient Particularity”: Technical Trade Secrets Require More
