The California Uniform Trade Secrets Act provides several remedies for the misappropriation of trade secrets, including injunctive relief, damages, reasonable royalties, punitive damages and attorneys fees. But actually proving damages — whether measured by plaintiff’s actual loss or defendant’s unjust enrichment — without relying on inadmissible speculation and conjecture by expert witnesses has been difficult for plaintiffs in the trade secrets context. We examine here the difficulties plaintiffs face, and considerations of what redress may be more fruitful than damages, as well as the challenge of managing client perceptions and expectations when a client is the victim of trade secret theft. Such theft is usually combined with a cluster of bad deeds, and teasing out the actual damage from just the trade secrets, especially where a plaintiff is a large player in a given industry or segment, can prove challenging.
DEFINITIONS OF ‘MISAPPROPRIATION’ AND ‘TRADE SECRET’
CUTSA provides definitions for both misappropriation and trade secret.
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