In May 2013, the Pennsylvania Superior Court analyzed the circumstances under which a trial court may award attorney fees to a defendant for claims brought in bad faith under the Pennsylvania Uniform Trade Secrets Act (PUTSA), 12 Pa. C.S.A.§ 5301 et seq, in the case Krafft v. Downey, 68 A.3d 329 (Pa. Super. 2013). In Krafft, the Superior Court utilized a two-prong test for determining whether a trade secret claim was brought in bad faith.
Although the Superior Court did not adopt this two-prong test for bad faith for application in future PUTSA attorney fee claims, the opinion is useful because the same test has been used in various federal district courts, including the Western District of Pennsylvania in Hill v. Best Medical International, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 147853 (W.D. Pa. Dec. 22, 2011). Furthermore, the opinion provides a cautionary tale that litigants and their counsel cannot ignore facts in the public domain when deciding whether a potential trade secret claim has merit.
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