Trade Secret

The Sixth Circuit holds that district courts may not require ‘clear and convincing evidence’ for each preliminary injunction factor in trade secret cases, reversing a lower court’s denial of injunctive relief against an engineer who allegedly took proprietary documents to a competitor.

In a 2-1 decision, the Sixth Circuit affirmed only $1 in nominal damages for Sanyo’s admitted misuse of Oldnar’s touchscreen know-how under a joint development agreement, holding that the plaintiff’s sole royalty-based damages theory was legally inapplicable.