Massive Trade Secrets Verdict Shows Problem with Press Coverage

On February 1, 2017, a jury in a Dallas federal court returned a verdict in ZeniMax v. Oculus, a high-stakes battle over who owns the technology used in the Oculus Rift virtual reality system. The jury found that Oculus and its co-founders caused damages totaling $500 million. That’s a lot of money in some circles, but the COO of Oculus’s owner said “the verdict is non-material to our business.”

You see, the owner of Oculus is a little company called Facebook.

But still, it’s not every day that a Texas jury finds damages of half a billion dollars in a case involving allegations of trade secret misappropriation, copyright infringement, breach of a non-disclosure agreement, trademark infringement, and spoliation of evidence. As a Texas litigator who deals with all of these issues, I was curious to see what lessons could be learned from the Oculus verdict.

The answer: not a whole lot. The problem is that you can read every word of the 90-page jury verdict and still have no idea what happened in the trial. And news reports about the verdict don’t add much. In fact, the Oculus case is a prime example study of how little the typical press coverage of a jury verdict tells you.

Of course, you can at least learn who the main players were:

Video game pioneer John Carmack worked for id Software, a subsidiary of ZeniMax.
Carmack came into contact with wiz kid Palmer Luckey, who was developing a virtual reality headset called the Rift.
Luckey founded Oculus to commercialize the Rift.
Carmack worked with Luckey on improving the Rift.
ZeniMax entered into a Non-Disclosure Agreement with Luckey and Oculus.
Carmack eventually left id Software and joined Oculus.
Brendan Iribe was the CEO of Oculus.
Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion.

ZeniMax and id Software sued Carmack, Luckey, Iribe, Oculus, and Facebook, claiming they misappropriated trade secrets and other intellectual property.

For me, the most interesting nugget was ZeniMax accusing Carmack of stealing documents on a USB drive and wiping his computer to destroy evidence. Carmack denied these allegations in a Facebook post after the verdict, saying “I never tried to hide or wipe any evidence,” but if the jury heard evidence supporting these allegations, it must have colored their perception of other issues in the case.

The defendants were able to claim a partial victory because the jury found that none of the defendants misappropriated ZeniMax’s trade secrets. But the jury found liability on other causes of action, and significant damages, against all defendants except Facebook:

$50 million against Oculus for copyright infringement
$200 million against Oculus for breach of the Non-Disclosure Agreement
$50 million against Oculus for false designation of origin
$50 million against Luckey for false designation of origin
$150 million against Iribe for false designation of origin

Add these up, and you get a headline like this: “Oculus lawsuit ends with half billion dollar judgment awarded to ZeniMax.” If you’re a litigator, that kind of headline makes you cringe. Not because of the amount of money, but because you know that a jury doesn’t award a “judgment” at all. The jury renders a verdict. Later, the judge enters a judgment based on the verdict.

Maybe it sounds nit-picky, but reporters make this mistake all the time. When a headline says “Oculus ordered to pay $500 million in ZeniMax lawsuit,” it is simply inaccurate. The jury doesn’t order anyone to pay anything. The jury just fills in a blank in response to a question. The judge decides whether to order the defendant to pay.

screen-shot-2017-02-04-at-8-38-27-am — I don’t care who you are, that’s a lot of zeroes

The distinction can be important. In some cases, entering a judgment on the verdict is a routine, almost ministerial, act by the judge. But in any moderately complex case, you can bet there will be a battle of post-verdict motions over what to do with the verdict. This is the trial court judge’s opportunity to rule on legal issues in the case before it goes up on appeal.

It’s possible that the judge in the Oculus case will simply render judgment ordering each defendant to pay the amount of damages the jury found that defendant caused, but I don’t expect it will be that simple. (Narrator: it would not be that simple.) You can look at the complicated charge and the number of high-priced lawyers on the case and know there is going to be a battle over the judgment.

Expect the defendants to argue that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s answers on both liability and damages. I also wonder if there is an election of remedies issue. When the jury awards damages on several causes of action that arise from the same facts, the judge doesn’t necessarily add up all the dollar amounts and award the total to the plaintiff.

So the verdict is the climax, not the end of the story. We’ll have to wait and see whether the judgment actually awards $500 million (plus interest and maybe attorneys’ fees?), and whether the judge grants an injunction against sales of the Oculus Rift based on the jury’s finding of copyright infringement.

I tried to think of a good football analogy, but golf is better for this point. Discovery and pre-trial motions are the first 17 holes. The trial is getting the ball on the 18th green. The post-verdict motions and appeals are getting the ball in the hole to win the tournament. That’s why they say “trial lawyers drive for show, appellate lawyers putt for dough.”

It will be fun to watch ZeniMax’s lawyers putt for $500 million.

*Update: The trial court later cut the amount of damages in half, an appeal to the Fifth Circuit was filed, and the parties eventually settled before the appeal was decided.

The trial court held a hearing on post-verdict motions on June 20, 2017 (see transcript here). In an opinion and order issued on June 27, 2018, Judge Ed Kinkeade, agreed that there was no evidence of any actual damages to Zenimax caused by the unauthorized use of Zenimax’s marks. Zenimax’s damages expert had only testified to damages caused by the alleged misappropriation of trade secrets, and there was no evidence tying any of the $2 billion Facebook paid for Oculus to any act of false designation. Zenimax Media Inc. v. Oculus VR LLC, No. 3:14-CV-18490K, 2018 WL 3135915 (N.D. Tex. June 27, 2018). The trial court entered judgment for $250 million against Oculus, and Oculus filed a notice of appeal.

As reported here by The Verge, the parties later signed a confidential settlement agreement in December 2018. “While we dislike litigation,” ZeniMax CEO Robert Altman reportedly said, “we will always vigorously defend against any infringement of misappropriation of our intellectual property.”

Wait, dislike litigation? What’s not to like?

_____________________________________

Zach Wolfe (zwolfe@fleckman.com) is a Texas trial lawyer who handles non-compete and trade secret litigation at his firm Fleckman & McGlynn, PLLC. Thomson Reuters named him a 2020 Texas “Super Lawyer”® for Business Litigation..

These are his opinions, not the opinions of his firm or clients, so don’t cite part of this post against him in an actual case. Every case is different, so don’t rely on this post as legal advice for your case.

From Russia with Love: California Court Addresses Personal Jurisdiction Under Defend Trade Secrets Act

Do Northern California federal courts have jurisdiction over every Gmail user who emails confidential information?

The answer is no, but give points for creativity to the plaintiff in OOO Brunswick Rail Management v. Sultanov, who at least made the argument. More about that later.

If you like trade secrets cases, you’ve got to love the Brunswick case. It has everything. A Russian company. A renegade employee emailing confidential company documents to his personal Gmail account (allegedly). And something every trade secret litigation nerd wanted to see: an application for an ex parte seizure order under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act.

In May 2016, then-President Obama signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA). As I reported here, the chief practical effect of the DTSA was to give plaintiffs in trade secrets cases the option of suing in federal or state court. Unless you’re a trade secrets litigator like me, that’s pretty boring.

But the sexy part of the DTSA was the new ex parte seizure remedy. “Ex parte” is a Latin phrase that means “you don’t have to tell the judge how crappy your case is.” But seriously, it means only one side presents its case to the judge. The DTSA allows a judge to order federal marshals to seize a person’s property—typically we’re talking about a computer or smartphone—without notice to that person.

This caused some serious handwringing in the legal community. We have an “adversary” system of justice that guarantees due process—at least for now—so lawyers worried about potential abuse of the ex parte seizure remedy.

I agreed with critics who saw no real need for a federal trade secrets statute, but I wasn’t too concerned about a wave of ex parte seizure orders. The DTSA has strict requirements for such orders, and I predicted most federal judges would not grant such an extreme remedy when an ordinary temporary restraining order would do.

A test case for the DTSA’s ex parte seizure remedy

Brunswick was one of the first cases to test my theory. The complaint presented a fairly ordinary misappropriation of trade secrets case, but with a Russian twist:

Brunswick is a Russian company that leases railcars to large corporate clients in Russia. After beginning a process to restructure its debt, Brunswick sued its former CEO in a confidential arbitration.

A Russian-American named Sultanov went to work for Brunswick and signed a typical confidentiality agreement. Essentially, Sultanov agreed not to disclose Brunswick’s confidential information, that all of Brunswick’s internal information is confidential, and that he would return all Brunswick confidential information on request.

Sultanov started acting suspiciously: taking calls one floor up from his office, asking a lot of questions about the debt restructuring, and even coming to work on the weekends. (Big law firm associates take note.)

Sultanov emailed confidential Brunswick documents from his work email to his personal Gmail account. He then deleted the emails from his Brunswick account and emptied his “trash” folder. The emailed information could be highly damaging to Brunswick’s debt restructuring negotiations with its creditors.

Phone records showed Sultanov repeatedly calling a Brunswick creditor involved in the restructuring.

When confronted, Sultanov admitted sending the emails but refused to return his company-issued mobile phone and laptop.

And my favorite allegation from the complaint:

“Extraordinary steps” including “locking its doors.” Wow. I knew Russia had nuclear weapons, but I didn’t realize it now has access to modern door-locking technology.[1]

So far, these facts present an interesting, but typical, trade secrets case against a former employee.[2] Emailing company files to your personal Gmail account on the sly? Come on, man! That’s so last decade. It’s more obvious than getting down on the floor and sticking a USB drive in your PC tower.

But if you’re Brunswick’s lawyer, where do you sue Sultanov? How can you get his computer and phone back quickly? And how can you do it without giving him a chance to tell his side of the story?

It’s time to get creative.

Trade secrets case tests two novel theories

First, a little background for my non-lawyer readers. To sue someone in federal court, you need both “subject matter” jurisdiction and “personal” jurisdiction. Subject matter jurisdiction means the court has jurisdiction to hear the type of claim you’re making. Personal jurisdiction means that the court has jurisdiction over the person you’re suing.

Personal jurisdiction is complicated, but in a trade secrets case, it boils down to this: you need to show that the person you’re suing took or received the alleged trade secrets in the state where you’re suing him (as I explained here).

Brunswick came up with the brilliant idea of suing Sultanov in federal court in California for violating the Defend Trade Secrets Act. Subject matter jurisdiction? Check.[3]

Personal jurisdiction? That was a little harder. Sultanov’s sneaky shenanigans all took place in Russia, right?

Not exactly. If you had Encyclopedia Brown on the case, he’d spot a detail you might have missed: Sultanov emailed Brunswick’s confidential information to his Gmail account. And where is his gmail account located? You guessed it: Google headquarters in Silicon Valley.

Brunswick argued in its brief that Sultanov was subject to personal jurisdiction in the Northern District of California because he emailed the trade secrets at issue to his Gmail account hosted by Google. Not only that, Sultanov went to high school and college in California and “certainly would be aware that Google is based in California and that his intentional use of Gmail would have effects in California.”

Like I said, points for creativity.

Judge denies ex parte seizure order and rejects creative jurisdiction argument

Brunswick filed suit on January 4, 2017 asking for an ex parte seizure order against Sultanov under the Defend Trade Secrets Act. Two days later, U.S. District Judge Edward J. Avila issued this opinion denying a seizure order but granting a temporary restraining order (TRO).

Judge Davila cited the DTSA provision that a court can grant an ex parte seizure order only if it finds that another form of equitable relief would be inadequate. “Here, the Court finds that seizure under the DTSA is unnecessary because the Court will order that Sultanov must deliver these devices to the Court at the time of the hearing scheduled below, and in the meantime, the devices may not be accessed or modified.”

This seems like the sensible ruling, and the one you would expect most federal judges to make in this situation. It’s the reason I expected that granting an ex parte seizure order would be very rare.

So what happened when Sultanov’s lawyer got a chance to respond? If you’re a litigator, or if you’ve watched a lot of episodes of Law and Order, you know what’s coming.

First, would you believe there was another side to the story? Sultanov’s response painted a very different picture than Brunswick’s complaint. Far from a dishonest employee stealing the company’s trade secrets for personal gain, Sultanov portrayed himself as a conscientious whistleblower exposing corporate fraud, even against his own interest.

I would share more details, but most of Sultanov’s publicly available response looked like this:

Second, Sultanov attacked Brunswick’s creative “Gmail” theory of personal jurisdiction. After hearing arguments from both sides on the personal jurisdiction issue, the judge issued this order siding with Sultanov and rejecting the Gmail theory:

As a lawyer who has read literally hundreds of personal jurisdiction cases, I can tell you the judge was on solid legal ground.[4] Plus, the Gmail argument would make the Northern District of California to trade secrets litigation what the Eastern District of Texas has been to patent litigation.

That would be bad. I’ve traveled to both Silicon Valley and the Eastern District of Texas for litigation matters. I had some great Korean food in Palo Alto, but California is just too expensive. Tyler and Marshall, on the other hand, are much cheaper and have better BBQ joints.

But I digress.

A lesson about the adversary system

The Brunswick case provides a great lesson about the adversary system, due process, and the reason people got so worked up about the ex parte seizure remedy in the Defend Trade Secrets Act.

First, even when the lawyer asking for an ex parte order is totally honest, he’s unlikely to volunteer any important reasons not to grant the relief. The judge is only going to get one side of the story.

A related problem is that when the judge only hears from one side, no one involved has a strong personal incentive to test the underlying assumptions of the lawsuit. For example, does the court even have personal jurisdiction over the defendant?

So, when the judge in Brunswick issued a 2000-word order granting a TRO against Sultanov, the word “jurisdiction” appeared exactly zero times.

I wasn’t there, but I’m guessing when Judge Davila issued the ex parte order two days after the suit was filed, there wasn’t a robust discussion about whether Sultanov was subject to personal jurisdiction. I’m wondering if the judge was a little ticked off when he later realized that the jurisdictional basis for the TRO he signed was the Gmail theory.

*Update: After allowing limited jurisdictional discovery, Judge Davila granted Sultanov’s motion to dismiss the case for lack of personal jurisdiction. The judge again rejected Brunswick’s Gmail jurisdiction theory. You can read that opinion here.

_________________________________________________

Zach Wolfe is a Texas trial lawyer who handles non-compete and trade secret litigation at his firm Fleckman & McGlynn, PLLC. Thomson Reuters named him a 2020 Texas “Super Lawyer”® for Business Litigation.

[1] In fairness to Brunswick, the Complaint also alleged some pretty extensive additional efforts to protect confidential information.

[2] For simplicity, I’m leaving out facts about Brunswick’s claim against another employee, its former CEO Paul Ostling. Adding those facts would turn this into “Ten Minute Law.”

[3] Federal courts have original but not exclusive jurisdiction over DTSA claims. 18 U.S.C. § 1836(c).

[4] The judge also found that the evidence did not support Brunswick’s additional allegation that Sultanov maintained a personal residence in California. The judge cited Sultanov’s testimony that the address at issue was a family friend’s property that he sometimes used as a mailing address.

Injunction Junction, What’s Your Function?

The Highland Capital case shows what it takes for a Texas trade secrets injunction to hold up on appeal

I previously wrote here about how not to enforce an injunction in a non-compete lawsuit. But when an employee takes your client’s confidential information or trade secrets, what evidence do you need to get an injunction in the first place?

Most lawyers can recite the buzzwords courts have used thousands of times: “imminent harm,” “irreparable injury,” “no adequate remedy at law.” But let’s face it. Courts have a hard time coherently explaining these concepts. The recent Texas case Daugherty v. Highland Capital Management is no exception.[1]

dangling-car — Imminent harm? Yes. Irreparable injury? Probably not.

Lawyers who handle these cases should understand that imminent harm and irreparable injury mean two different things:

“Imminent harm” means that harm is about to happen if the court doesn’t stop it. This has nothing to do with whether the harm is “irreparable.”

“Irreparable injury” means that awarding damages would be an inadequate remedy for the harm. This has nothing to do with whether the harm is about to happen or not.

Unfortunately, courts often confuse these two requirements. For example, a court will cite evidence that a competitor is in a position to use a company’s trade secrets as establishing “irreparable injury,” when that fact actually goes to the issue of “imminent harm.”[2]

Another recurring problem is that when courts cite evidence of “irreparable injury” in a trade secrets case, they often cite evidence that is either tautological or generic. In other words, they tend to cite evidence that is either (a) true by definition or (b) recited in virtually every trade secrets case. This renders the analysis less than satisfying.

Let’s use Highland Capital as an example. The basic facts were typical: Employee signs confidentiality agreement with Employer, Employee leaves Employer, Employer sues Employee for taking Confidential Stuff.

steam-locomotive-wreck — Imminent harm, or irreparable injury?

The jury verdict, on the other hand, was a little unusual. The jury found that Employee breached the confidentiality agreement, Employer’s damages were zero dollars, and Employer’s reasonable attorneys’ fees were $2.8 million. The judge awarded Employer the attorneys’ fees plus an injunction against retaining, using, or disclosing Employer’s confidential information.

This raises important questions. First, where can I find one of these clients who will pay $2.8 million to try a confidentiality agreement case? Second, what does Highland Capital teach us about what evidence is necessary for a trade secrets injunction to hold up on appeal?

Evidence of imminent harm?

Here are six things the Highland Capital court cited as evidence of imminent harm, followed by my questions:

1. The court said there was “evidence that [Employee] took, kept, and used confidential information.”

This is evidence that the employee breached his confidentiality agreement, but is it evidence of imminent harm?

2. The court cited “demands and protracted litigation.”

Saying the litigation was “protracted” reminds me of what Nathan Arizona said when the police asked if he had any disgruntled employees. “Hell, they’re all disgruntled . . .”

3. Employer’s expert testified: “this information goes to the core of what [Employer] does as a business and what [Employer] is in terms of its value.”

This is fairly generic. Believe me, every company thinks the information the employee took “goes to the core” of the company’s value.

4. Employer’s expert: the information’s “existence away from [Employer] harms [Employer] because there’s always the possibility that it can get into general distribution . . . or to a competitor.”

This seems tautological. By definition, doesn’t the fact that someone else has the confidential information create a “possibility” that it could become public or known by a competitor?

grand-central — Does the “possibility” of harm establish irreparable injury?

5. Employer’s expert: the harm “may not be immediate, but the harm may occur over a long period of time.”

Doesn’t the fact that the harm may occur over a long period of time suggest it is not imminent?

6. Employer’s expert testified “I cannot quantify the total harm,” and “it may be that I can’t measure the specific relationship of these documents to that harm. . . you can’t measure things that you don’t know have occurred.” Asked if he performed “any sort of statistical analysis to try to put a number to this harm,” the expert said, “We did not and could not.”

Do these statements go to whether the harm is imminent, or whether the harm is irreparable? It seems like the court put this evidence in the wrong section of the opinion.

Evidence of irreparable injury?

As for irreparable injury, the Highland Capital court cited these key points from the testimony of Employer’s co-founder:

1. “A specific document [Employee] took and failed to return revealed [Employer]’s current and prospective investment strategies.”

In other words, Defendant misappropriated confidential information. But does that make the injury irreparable?

2. There was “[a] particular document [Employee] failed to return in which one of [Employer]’s investors was identified as well as names of our other clients and the investment objectives which are confidential.”

Again, this is evidence of misappropriation of confidential information, but how is it evidence of irreparable injury?

train-time-lapse — The harm from losing confidential information can be difficult to quantify

3. “Some of the people in the marketplace can replicate our firm strategies and our investment objectives and form competing funds with these materials like marketing materials.”

This could be evidence of imminent harm, but how does it show that the harm could not be compensated by damages?

4. “If our investors see that we don’t have enough safeguards over our confidential information they would refuse to invest with us, we would be violating our agreements with them, we would be violating the law.”

Again, this is evidence of the possibility of injury, but how does it establish irreparable injury?

5. “Putting a dollar value is almost impossible. But it’s very valuable to us. It’s very, very important.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. This goes to the issue of irreparable injury. But this testimony seems generic. Very, very generic.

Based on this testimony, the court said there was “evidence of harm that could not be quantified,” and therefore, evidence of irreparable injury.

What did we learn today?

So what do you think? Does the analysis of imminent harm and irreparable injury in Highland Capital support my point that courts often get these two requirements confused? Does it show that courts often rely on tautological or generic statements to uphold an injunction?

train-stop-lights — Understand what you need to prove to stop the use of your client’s confidential information

The more practical lesson for litigators is this: If you are trying to get an injunction for your client, offer evidence showing that the defendant is going to use or disclose the confidential information soon if an injunction is not granted (imminent harm), and that damages would be an inadequate remedy because the harm is inherently difficult to quantify (irreparable injury). Even if courts get confused, don’t mix up these concepts in your own mind.

Irreparable injury can be tricky. You need to show that quantifying the damage is inherently difficult, but without conceding that the damage is speculative. This balancing act is especially difficult when, as in Highland Capital, you are also trying to persuade the jury to award lost profits or some other form of damages.

Don’t forget to prepare your witnesses to say the right “magic words,” like “putting a dollar value on this is almost impossible” (if that’s true). But take it a step further and have your witnesses explain why quantifying the damage is difficult. Because it’s not enough to have some generic testimony to uphold the injunction on appeal. It’s also important to persuade the trial court judge to grant the injunction in the first place.

*Update: If the plaintiff goes to trial on a trade secrets claim and presents expert testimony on actual damages, there is some risk the court will say that the damages evidence shows that there is an adequate remedy at law and therefore “irreparable injury.” This seems to be what happened in Pike v. Texas EMC Mgm’t, LLC, No. 17-0557, 2020 WL 3405812, at *23-24 (Tex. June 19, 2020).

_________________________________________________________________

Zach Wolfe (zwolfe@fleckman.com) is a Texas trial lawyer who handles non-compete and trade secret litigation at his firm Fleckman & McGlynn, PLLC. Thomson Reuters named him a 2020 Texas Super Lawyer® for Business Litigation.

[1] Daugherty v. Highland Capital Mgm’t, L.P., No. 05-14-01215-CV, 2016 WL 4446158 (Tex. App.—Dallas Aug. 22, 2016).

[2] For example, in Tranter, Inc. v. Liss, No. 02-13-00167-CV, 2014 WL 1257278 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth March 27, 2014, no pet.), the court said that “[a] highly trained employee’s continued breach of a noncompete agreement creates a rebuttable presumption that the employer is suffering an irreparable injury.” While the fact that an employee is competing in violation of his non-compete suggests imminent harm, it does not show that the harm is irreparable.

Five Minute Law

"Why do you write like you're running out of time?"

Tag: Trade Secret Litigation