Daily Dicta: Newly-Confirmed to the 9th Circuit, Kirkland's Bress Notches Final Win in Court
For Daniel Bress, who was confirmed to the Ninth Circuit on July 9, the victory on behalf of Honeywell is a nice capstone to his career in private practice.
July 18, 2019 at 10:46 AM
4 minute read
We can't make Daniel Bress Litigator of the Week. The former Kirkland & Ellis partner was confirmed on July 9 by the U.S. Senate to a seat on the Ninth Circuit.
But in a nice capstone to his career in private practice, Bress on Tuesday scored a big summary judgment win for Honeywell International before a North Carolina state court in a high-stakes trade secret fight against Dutch industrial giant DSM.
At issue: revolutionary technology used by the U.S. military for its “enhanced combat helmet.” Lighter and stronger, it's even capable of safely stopping a rifle shot to the head.
In 2006, engineer James Thagard began working for DSM, where he assisted in developing materials for helmet applications. In March of 2009, Thagard quit DSM and the following year, he joined Honeywell as global business manager for helmets.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military was working with manufacturers to develop a next-generation combat helmet.
3M subsidiary Ceradyne won the contract to manufacture the helmets, but the actual bullet-stopping high tech material would be supplied by DSM or Honeywell.
The exact details are redacted, but each company created some kind of material that used polyurethane resin to hold fibers together in order to distribute the energy of an impact from, say, a bullet.
Originally, DSM won out—the military in 2010 picked its material for the helmets. But Honeywell kept working on improving its product, and DSM helmets kept failing tests—the helmets couldn't stop bullets. “THIS PROCESS PASSES IN OCTOBER OR THIS PROGRAM DIES,” Ceradyne told DSM. (Emphasis in the original.)
In 2013, Honeywell submitted its newest material to Ceradyne. It performed three times better in blunt impact testing and was significantly cheaper, so Honeywell got the nod to replace DSM.
While this is surely a win for soldiers and taxpayers, DSM pointed the finger at its former employee Thagard, claiming that he stole their trade secrets.
In an opinion made public on July 16, Chief Judge Louis Bledsoe III of the North Carolina Business Court sided with Honeywell in granting summary judgment.
Bledsoe noted that DSM, which was represented by McCullough Ginsberg Montano & Partners and Bell, Davis & Pitt, “has not come forward with any evidence of misappropriation.”
Honeywell “made substantial progress in its efforts to select a new resin for helmet UD materials prior to Thagard's arrival,” Bledsoe noted.
As for another supposed DSM trade secret, this one concerning the treatment of fibers in anti-ballistic materials, Bledsoe concluded the technique “is generally known in the industry.” Plus Honeywell holds various patents dating back to 1995 that deal with this.
“DSM has failed to demonstrate the existence of an actionable trade secret in those concepts and summary judgment on that basis is proper,” the judge held.
In addition to Bress, Kirkland's Craig Primis, Kate Katz, Alexia Brancato, Sarah Smith and Ross Powell worked on the case.
DSM counsel Dino Haloulos of McCullough Ginsberg did not respond to a request for comment.
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