Trade Secret

A federal judge orders OpenAI to turn over hiring records as Apple accuses the AI company of poaching employees and their confidential knowledge. Here is what every business owner should know about trade secret protection.

A federal jury awarded Aerosonic approximately $116.9 million after finding that Joby Aviation breached a nondisclosure agreement and willfully misappropriated trade secrets related to air data probe technology. The case highlights the serious financial consequences of mishandling proprietary information shared under confidentiality agreements.

Apple filed a federal lawsuit alleging OpenAI systematically recruited Apple employees and directed them to steal confidential product information. The case offers critical lessons for any business that relies on proprietary information to maintain its competitive edge.

The Ninth Circuit reversed a $40 million trade secret verdict because the trial court gave the jury an instruction based on the wrong law. The Comet Technologies case offers critical lessons about the differences between federal and state trade secret claims and why the details of litigation strategy matter.

Apple filed a 41-page complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in July 2026, accusing OpenAI and its hardware subsidiary IO Products of orchestrating a systematic campaign to steal Apple's confidential product designs, manufacturing processes, and supply chain strategies. At the center of the lawsuit is Tang Tan, Apple's former Vice President of Product Design for the iPhone and Apple Watch, who left Apple after 24 years to become OpenAI's

A federal judge ordered an insurtech startup to stop using trade secrets it obtained by creating a fake company to access a competitor's software. The case offers critical lessons about monitoring and controlling access to your proprietary business systems.

Apple filed a blockbuster trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI in July 2026, accusing the AI company of orchestrating a systematic effort to extract confidential engineering information through former Apple employees. The case escalated dramatically in late August when Apple presented forensic evidence from a former engineer's MacBook, alleging that confidential circuit schematics were downloaded and used at OpenAI. Apple further claims that evidence was deliberately destroyed

A jury once awarded Coda Development $64 million after finding that Goodyear misappropriated its self-inflating tire technology. But the trial court threw out that verdict entirely, and in early 2025, the Federal Circuit affirmed the reversal. The reason had nothing to do with whether Goodyear actually stole the technology. Instead, the case collapsed because Coda failed to define its trade secrets with enough specificity for the court to evaluate them. For any business owner

Apple Inc. filed a federal lawsuit against OpenAI on July 10, 2026, accusing the AI company of orchestrating a coordinated campaign to steal trade secrets related to upcoming hardware products. The case highlights the importance of trade secret protections, especially when employees move to competitors. Learn what every business owner should know about safeguarding confidential information.

South Korea's Supreme Court has finalized a ruling ordering game developer Ironmace and its founders to pay approximately $4.2 million in damages to Nexon, one of the country's largest game publishers. The April 30, 2026, decision ends a five-year legal battle over allegations that former Nexon employees took proprietary source code and game development materials with them when they left the company to create the hit dungeon-crawling game Dark and Darker. For business owners

A federal court in the Southern District of New York recently upheld a $70 million compensatory damages verdict in Syntel Sterling Best Shores Mauritius Ltd. v. The TriZetto Group Inc., a trade secret case involving health care insurance software that has been litigated for more than a decade. The March 27, 2026, decision is significant because the court endorsed a flexible, fact-based approach to calculating trade secret damages, rejecting the defendant's demand for a rigid

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently affirmed a district court's decision to vacate a $75 million jury verdict in Trinseo Europe GmbH v. Kellogg Brown & Root, L.L.C. , a case involving the alleged theft of polycarbonate manufacturing technology. The ruling sends a clear message to businesses pursuing trade secret claims: proving that your secrets were stolen is only half the battle. If you cannot clearly tie your damages to each specific trade secret that

Two recent federal court decisions have put businesses on notice: sharing confidential information with public artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT can permanently destroy trade secret protection. The rulings, issued in early 2026, are among the first to directly address the legal consequences of disclosing proprietary information to AI platforms, and they carry significant implications for any company that uses generative AI in its operations. The Trinidad v. OpenAI De

A San Antonio jury recently awarded $175 million to real estate analytics firm HouseCanary Inc. after finding that title company Amrock LLC misappropriated proprietary appraisal technology and data. The verdict, which came after a nearly four-week trial in Bexar County, Texas, marks the second time a jury has sided with HouseCanary in this long-running dispute. For business owners who rely on proprietary data, algorithms, or processes to stay competitive, the case delivers a