Trade secret litigation often turns on fast-moving disputes over information, competition, and control. Each month, we highlight notable rulings, verdicts, and enforcement actions shaping trade secret risk and litigation outcomes.
Ninth Circuit Denies Boeing's Rehearing Bid, Preserves $92 Million Trade Secret Verdict
Appellate jurisdiction fight tests the line between compulsory and permissive patent counterclaims
A Ninth Circuit panel denied a petition for rehearing filed by The Boeing Company in Zunum Aero, Inc. v. The Boeing Co., rejecting an argument Boeing raised only after losing on appeal: that the Federal Circuit, not the Ninth Circuit, held exclusive appellate jurisdiction over the case.
The dispute traces back to 2020, when Zunum sued Boeing in Washington state court, alleging Boeing misappropriated more than 30 trade secrets tied to Zunum's hybrid electric aircraft technology, including claims that two Boeing patents incorporated information taken from Zunum. Boeing removed the case to federal court based on a patent-inventorship counterclaim. After an eight-day trial, a jury found Boeing had misappropriated 11 of 19 asserted trade secrets and awarded Zunum roughly $92.79 million in combined damages. The district court later granted Boeing's motion for judgment as a matter of law and a conditional new trial, vacating the verdict — a ruling the Ninth Circuit panel reversed on appeal, remanding the case to a newly assigned judge.
Boeing argued the Ninth Circuit decision was void because its patent-inventorship counterclaims were compulsory, which in Boeing's view meant the appeal belonged in the Federal Circuit. The panel disagreed, holding the counterclaims were permissive because they didn't rest on the same operative facts as Zunum's misappropriation claim and didn't depend on rights that would otherwise have stayed dormant. The panel also held that a district court may exercise supplemental jurisdiction over state-law claims tied to a permissive federal counterclaim, aligning with the First, Second, and Seventh Circuits on that question. Judge Bridget S. Bade concurred in the result but wrote separately, arguing the majority's "logical relationship" framing was the wrong lens and that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 13(a) instead calls for asking whether the claim and counterclaim arise from the same transaction.
What this means: Companies litigating parallel state trade secret and federal patent claims should expect that the compulsory-versus-permissive distinction can carry jurisdictional consequences years into a case, not just at the pleading stage, and that a defendant can't wait until after an adverse ruling to raise it for the first time.
OpenAI and Former Apple Employees Push Back on Apple's Bid to Halt Hardware Work
Trade secret claims face scrutiny over specificity and public disclosure
OpenAI Foundation, OpenAI Group PBC, io Products LLC, and former Apple engineer Tang Yew Tan filed their opposition to Apple's motion for a preliminary injunction in Apple Inc. v. Chang Liu, et al., pending in the Northern District of California. Apple's suit centers on the departures of longtime Apple hardware executive Tang Tan and engineer Chang Liu, both of whom joined io Products — the hardware startup OpenAI acquired in 2025 — and alleges they carried confidential Apple information with them.
The defendants argue Apple has not identified a single protectable trade secret, characterizing Apple's filings as listing generic categories such as "hardware engineering, manufacturing and industrial design" rather than specific, identifiable information. Citing case law requiring a plaintiff to show likely success on the merits for at least one specifically defined trade secret, the opposition contends Apple's claims about metal-finishing processes and power-component design cover information that has already been publicly disclosed or is readily discoverable through reverse engineering. It also disputes that Apple took reasonable measures to protect the information at issue, pointing to Apple's own policy of encouraging employees to access and store work documents through personal iCloud accounts.
Separately, the filing pushes back on allegations that Tan improperly directed departing colleagues to keep Apple property, and that OpenAI's hiring and interview practices amounted to misappropriation, framing both as ordinary conduct common across the industry.
What this means: The court's ruling on the injunction will turn heavily on whether Apple can narrow its trade secret allegations to specific, identifiable information rather than broad categories: a recurring theme in recent trade secret litigation involving departing employees at technology companies.
Judge Allows Countersuits to Proceed in NASCAR Trade Secrets Dispute
Noncompete and computer-access claims survive dismissal on both sides
U.S. District Judge Susan Rodriguez in the Western District of North Carolina denied competing motions to dismiss countersuits in the trade secrets dispute among Joe Gibbs Racing, Spire Motorsports, and former Gibbs Racing executive Christopher Gabehart.
Gibbs Racing originally sued Gabehart in February, alleging he photographed confidential racing data and saved it to a folder labeled "Spire" before accepting a position as Spire's chief motorsports officer, and later added Spire as a defendant for allegedly inducing Gabehart to breach his employment contract. Spire and Gabehart countersued in June — Spire claims Gibbs Racing violated an informal agreement governing the solicitation of each other's employees, while Gabehart alleges Gibbs Racing breached his contract, violated North Carolina wage law, and improperly accessed his personal accounts after a forensic examiner allegedly disclosed his privileged communications to opposing counsel.
Rodriguez let Spire's countersuit proceed over Gibbs Racing's argument that the parties never reached an enforceable agreement, and allowed several of Gabehart's claims to move forward, including breach of contract and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, while dismissing his Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and state computer-trespass claims with leave to refile. Gabehart has admitted to taking the photographs but says he intended only to document his tenure at the company and had no plan to share the data with Spire.
What this means: Trial is currently scheduled for February 2027. The case is a useful illustration of how noncompete agreements and computer-access statutes can generate overlapping, and sometimes competing, claims when an employee moves to a direct competitor.
For more information regarding Alto Litigation's litigation practice, please contact one of Alto Litigation's partners: Bahram Seyedin-Noor, Bryan Ketroser, Joshua Korr, or Kevin O'Brien.