Recent Significant Verdicts Under Defend Trade Secrets Act

Since Congress passed the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) in 2016, trade secret cases have gone from quiet back-office disputes to headline-grabbing, eye-watering verdicts.
We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars, battles over global profits, and juries deciding just how “willful and malicious” someone’s copying really was.
If your business relies on proprietary know-how, these recent DTSA verdicts are not just interestingthey’re a roadmap of what courts and juries actually care about.

In this article, we’ll walk through some of the most significant recent verdicts under the DTSA, what they tell us about damages, statutes of limitations, global reach, and
trade secret definitions, and then wrap up with practical, experience-based takeaways for companies trying to stay out of the defendant’s chair.

DTSA in a Nutshell: Why These Verdicts Matter

The DTSA created a federal cause of action for trade secret misappropriation. Instead of relying only on a patchwork of state laws, owners of trade secrets can sue in federal court
for:

• Injunctive relief to stop use or disclosure of trade secrets
• Compensatory damages (lost profits and/or unjust enrichment)
• Up to double damages for willful and malicious misappropriation
• Attorneys’ fees in certain circumstances
• In rare cases, ex parte seizure of property to prevent dissemination

Recent verdicts show courts are willing to grant very large awards where the evidence supports itbut they’re equally willing to cut those awards down on appeal if the damages
theory is weak, duplicative, or overly speculative. That tension is exactly what you see in the cases below.

Record-Breaking DTSA Verdict: Insulet Corp. v. EOFlow

In December 2024, a federal jury in Massachusetts returned the largest DTSA damages award to date: a staggering $452 million in favor of Insulet, the company behind the
OmniPod wearable insulin pump.¹ The case involved allegations that former employees took product design history, CAD files, and occlusion detection algorithms to
a competitor, EOFlow, which then launched its own patch pumps in international markets.

The jury awarded unjust enrichment damages based on EOFlow’s profits and tacked on substantial punitive damages after finding willful and malicious misappropriation.
Beyond the headline number, there are two big legal takeaways:

1. Juries Are Comfortable With Big NumbersIf the Story Makes Sense

The verdict confirms that when plaintiffs can clearly tie a competitor’s success to stolen technologyespecially where employees jump ship and similar products appearjuries may
have no problem awarding massive sums. Insulet’s case presented a narrative of long-term R&D investment, followed by alleged “shortcut” copying by a rival.
That narrative is often more persuasive to juries than technical damages formulas alone.

2. Statute of Limitations and “Notice” Can Make or Break the Case

The DTSA has a three-year statute of limitations from when misappropriation is discovered or should have been discovered with reasonable diligence. In the Insulet litigation,
a key question was when Insulet was on noticeback when it first saw EOFlow’s products at conferences, or later when it closely inspected devices and found stronger evidence
of copying. The jury sided with Insulet, finding that the company was not on notice until its detailed inspection.²

That finding allowed damages to reach back over years of foreign sales, illustrating how factual “notice” issues can dramatically affect the size of a DTSA verdict.
For businesses, it underscores the importance of documenting when concerns about possible copying first arise and what you did (or didn’t do) to investigate.

Global Profits on the Line: Motorola Solutions v. Hytera

Another landmark DTSA case involves Motorola Solutions and Hytera Communications, a Chinese competitor accused of using stolen design files and technical documentation to build
competing digital radios. A federal jury originally awarded Motorola roughly $764 million in combined trade secret and copyright damages; the district court later reduced the
award but still left hundreds of millions intact.³

The truly pivotal development came in 2024, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit weighed in on whether the DTSA allows recovery of foreign profits. The court held:

• The DTSA does allow extraterritorial damages where there are domestic acts in furtherance of the misappropriation; and
• Even aside from explicit extraterritorial language, foreign profits can be recoverable when they are the proximate result of domestic misconduct.⁴

This is a huge deal for global businesses. It means DTSA exposure doesn’t stop at the U.S. border. If misappropriation occurs through U.S. actssay, downloading files from servers
in the U.S. or directing an employee in the U.S. to transfer datathen profits from worldwide sales of products built on those secrets may be on the table.

When Big Verdicts Shrink: Syntel v. TriZetto and Unjust Enrichment

The saga of Syntel Sterling Best Shores Mauritius Ltd. v. The TriZetto Group Inc. is a cautionary tale about runaway damages. A New York federal jury once awarded TriZetto
hundreds of millions in trade secret and related damages over a healthcare software platform. Through post-trial motions and later appellate review, that number came down
dramatically, with the Second Circuit vacating a massive unjust enrichment award under the DTSA while leaving liability intact.⁵

The key lesson? Under the DTSA, unjust enrichment damages can’t be a free-for-all. Courts are increasingly careful about:

• Ensuring the trade secret owner’s loss or the defendant’s gain isn’t double-counted;
• Demanding a concrete link between the alleged secrets and the profits claimed; and
• Rejecting speculative “all of our success came from your secrets” narratives unsupported by evidence.

For plaintiffs, this means damages models need to be tightly reasoned and backed by credible economic analysis. For defendants, a sophisticated challenge to unjust enrichment
can sharply reduce any eventual verdicteven after a jury has already ruled.

Other Notable DTSA Verdicts and Trends

Zunum Aero v. Boeing: Startup Versus Industry Giant

In a closely watched trade secret case out of Washington, a jury awarded around $72 million to electric jet startup Zunum Aero against Boeing in 2024, based on claims that
Boeing misused proprietary business and technical information obtained during investment and funding discussions.⁶ While the case involved multiple causes of action,
trade secrets under federal law were a central theme.

The verdict underscores a recurring pattern: smaller technology companies can and do win sizable verdicts when they can show a clear chain of eventsfrom confidential
disclosures to suspiciously similar internal projects at a larger partner.

Ownership and Corporate Structure: Highland Consulting v. Minjares

In Highland Consulting Group, Inc. v. Minjares, the Eleventh Circuit addressed who actually “owns” trade secrets under the DTSA when documents use abbreviated or alternative
business names. The court upheld a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, finding that the jury could conclude the trade secrets belonged to the U.S. entity even though the materials
didn’t always use its formal legal name.⁷

The practical result: courts look at how an entity actually developed and used the information, not just the logo or letterhead name. Ownership disputes can complicate
DTSA litigation, but they won’t necessarily derail a verdict where the factual record supports the plaintiff’s claim.

Statute of Limitations Conflicts: Insulet vs. Woodall

Recent district court decisions in Insulet and Woodall reached different conclusions on when DTSA claims “accrue” for statute of limitations purposes. One court took a
narrower view of “inquiry notice,” focusing on when the plaintiff actually discovered key facts; another applied a more traditional rule that the clock starts when a reasonable
person would suspect misappropriation.⁸

For now, that split creates uncertaintyand gives both sides ammunition. Plaintiffs argue for a discovery-based standard tied to concrete evidence; defendants push for earlier
accrual based on red flags and industry awareness.

Procedure Can Be Outcome-Determinative: Pleadings, Discovery, and Local Rules

Ninth Circuit on Particularity: Quintara Biosciences v. Ruifeng

In 2025, the Ninth Circuit weighed in on a recurrent issue: how specifically must a DTSA plaintiff identify its trade secrets before discovery? In Quintara Biosciences v.
Ruifeng Biztech, the district court had effectively gutted the plaintiff’s case as a discovery sanction for failing to nail down particularized trade secret descriptions early.

The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that the DTSA requires a “sufficiently particular” identification, but not necessarily at the very start of the case. Courts should expect an
iterative process where discovery helps refine what exactly is at issue, while still using protective orders and case management tools to shield confidential information.⁹

That decision matters for verdicts because it increases the odds that cases reach the meritsand juriesrather than dying at the discovery stage in certain jurisdictions.

Local Rules Requiring Early Disclosures

In contrast, the Eastern District of Louisiana has adopted a local rule requiring early, sealed disclosures of alleged trade secrets before discovery can proceed.¹⁰
Plaintiffs must identify secrets in numbered paragraphs with enough detail to allow meaningful comparison to public or known information.

Together, these developments show that procedural rules are becoming almost as important as the underlying DTSA statute. Plaintiffs must be ready to explain what their secrets
are with increasing clarity, and defendants should understand how local practice can be leveraged to narrow claims before trial.

What These DTSA Verdicts Mean for Businesses

When you put all of these cases together, a few themes jump out:

• Juries reward clear narratives. “We invested for years, they took our people and copied our work” resonates far more than a dense technical explanation
  of value.
• Documentation is king. Companies that maintain access logs, NDA trails, and clear development histories are better positioned to show both ownership
  and misappropriation.
• Damages theories need discipline. Courts are wary of windfalls. Unjust enrichment and global profits must be tied tightly to specific secrets and
  concrete evidence.
• Global operations increase both risk and upside. As Motorola shows, if misappropriation touches the U.S., worldwide profits may be fair gameboth for
  plaintiffs and for defendants’ potential exposure.
• Timing and notice issues can reshape the case. When your team first suspected a problemand what you did nextcan expand or shrink the recoverable period.

For many companies, these verdicts confirm that investing in trade secret programspolicies, technical safeguards, employee training, and documentationis not just compliance
theater. It’s a form of litigation insurance.

Experiences and Practical Lessons From the DTSA Front Lines (≈)

What does all of this look like in real life? Here are some composite, experience-based scenarios that mirror what trade secret litigators and in-house lawyers have seen
play out in the wake of these DTSA verdicts.

1. The “We’ll Fix the Paperwork Later” Startup

A fast-growing startup in the manufacturing space poured everything into R&D and very little into process. Engineers moved fluidly between side projects, consulting gigs, and
internal skunkworks. NDAs were downloaded from the internet and rarely signed on time. When a key engineer left for a competitor and a remarkably similar product
hit the market, the company was outragedand then realized it had never clearly documented who owned what.

In litigation, that messy record came back to haunt them. Without clean IP assignment agreements or consistent use of the company’s name on design documents, the defense argued
that the relevant know-how belonged jointly to the engineer, a foreign affiliate, or a prior venture. The case did not generate an Insulet-style blockbuster verdict;
instead, it settled for a fraction of what the startup believed its technology was worth.

The experience mirrors what courts emphasized in Highland and other DTSA decisions: ownership is not a formality to be retrofitted later. A company’s everyday paperwork
will be Exhibit A at trial.

2. The Corporate Giant That Ignored Red Flags

On the other side of the table, consider a large enterprise that routinely engages in partnerships and technology pilots. A partner shares detailed proprietary information
under an NDA; internal teams enthusiastically pass that material around, saving it to shared drives and using it in slide decks labeled “Example Only.”

Years later, when internal teams launch a new product that happens to solve the exact same technical bottlenecks, they are genuinely convinced they “developed it independently,”
because everyone has forgotten which ideas came from where. In a DTSA suit, plaintiffs comb email trails, internal presentations, and version histories and start drawing
lines between the partner’s confidential presentations and specific design choices.

In court, the defendant’s problem isn’t just technical overlapit’s optics. Jurors see loose internal practices, casual handling of NDAs, and a lack of guardrails separating
“inspiration” from implementation. Verdicts like Motorola and Insulet show that once a jury is persuaded that a defendant treated someone else’s secrets casually,
punitive damages become much more realistic.

3. The Company That Over-Claimed Its “Secrets”

There are also plaintiffs who overreach. A company sues under the DTSA and labels virtually everything as a trade secret: pricing sheets, marketing plans, power-point
templates, even information readily visible on their public website. Early in the case, judges and juries are skeptical; later, the defendants use this over-designation to
argue that the plaintiff can’t show what, if anything, was truly secret.

This kind of over-claiming has real consequences. Cases like Quintara and Alifax illustrate that courts will exclude vaguely defined “buckets” of information from the jury,
and sometimes overturn or limit verdicts where the underlying trade secret definition was too hazy.¹¹ From a practical standpoint, it’s often better to go to trial with
a smaller set of well-defined secrets than a long, fuzzy list that confuses everyone.

4. The Quiet Win: Strong Policies, No Lawsuit

Finally, there are stories that never become verdicts precisely because companies took DTSA-informed lessons to heart. Some businesses now treat onboarding and offboarding
as mini compliance events: reminding new hires not to bring confidential information from prior employers, scanning incoming devices, and locking down source repositories and
document access well before an employee’s final day.

When disputes arise, those companies can point to policies, logs, and training records. Sometimes that’s enough to de-escalate conflict, avoiding DTSA suits altogether.
The most valuable “verdict” may be the one that never gets filed.

The overarching experience-based lesson is simple: the DTSA has real teeth, and recent verdicts show courts are willing to use them. But those same cases also offer a playbook
for avoiding catastrophic exposureby documenting ownership, tightening access, training employees, and taking early concerns about misappropriation seriously.

Conclusion

Recent significant verdicts under the DTSAfrom record-setting awards like Insulet’s $452 million judgment to globally focused decisions like Motorola v. Hyterareflect
a maturing body of federal trade secret law. Courts are clarifying how far the statute reaches, how damages should be calculated, and what plaintiffs must show to survive
to trial. At the same time, appellate decisions and local rules are shaping the procedural ground rules that control whether a case ever reaches a jury.

For companies, the message is clear: treat trade secrets as a strategic asset, not an afterthought. The upside of strong protectionand the downside of lax practiceshas
never been more stark. And as always, this article is for general informational purposes only and is not legal advice. For specific situations, you should consult qualified counsel.