May 11, 2026 marks the tenth anniversary of the Defend Trade Secrets Act. The DTSA created a federal civil cause of action for trade secret misappropriation, giving companies across the country a powerful new tool to protect their trade secret information. Over the past decade, the statute has reshaped the landscape of trade secret litigation in the United States. Below, we highlight key developments and notable milestones.
- Near-Unanimous Bipartisan Support. The DTSA passed the Senate unanimously (87-0) and the House by a vote of 410-2, before President Obama signed it on May 11, 2016.1
- The First DTSA Decision Arrived Swiftly. On June 10, 2016, only one month after the DTSA took effect, Judge Jon S. Tigar issued the first decision under the statute in Henry Schein, Inc. v. Cook, 191 F. Supp. 3d 1072 (N.D. Cal. 2016), granting a temporary restraining order.
- Thousands of DTSA Cases Have Been Filed Since its Enactment. In the last ten years, more than 9,500 DTSA cases have been filed in federal district courts around the country.2
- Substantial Jury Verdicts Have Been Awarded Under the DTSA. In 2020, an Illinois federal jury awarded Motorola Solutions roughly $764.6 million against rival Hytera Communications for trade secret misappropriation under the DTSA and copyright infringement (later reduced by the court to $543.7 million).3 In 2024, a jury in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts awarded $452 million in Insulet Corp. v. EOFlow Co. (later reduced to $59.4 million).4
- Circuits are Split on Trade Secret Identification Timing. On July 9, 2025, the Fourth Circuit (Sysco Mach. Corp. v. DCS USA Corp., 143 F.4th 222) held plaintiffs must identify trade secrets with “sufficient particularity” at the pleading stage to survive a motion to dismiss. One month later, the Ninth Circuit (Quintara Biosciences, Inc. v. Ruifeng Biztech Inc., 149 F.4th 1081) reached the opposite conclusion, holding this is a fact issue best resolved at summary judgment or trial.
- Typically, Trade Secret Cases Take Over Two Years to Reach Summary Judgment. From 2023 to 2025, the median time for a federal trade secret case to reach summary judgment was 796 days (nearly 2.2 years) based on 499 cases that reached that stage. The 157 cases that reached trial took a median of 1,124 days (just over 3 years).5
- Nearly Two-Thirds of Trade Secret Cases Settle. From 2023 to 2025, LexisNexis reported that 65% of federal trade secret cases ended in likely settlement, while 15% resulted in a claimant win, 4% in a defendant win, and 15% in a procedural resolution (dismissals, transfers, consolidations, etc.).6
- The DTSA Applies Extraterritorially. In Motorola Sols., Inc. v. Hytera Commc'ns Corp. Ltd., 108 F.4th 458 (7th Cir. 2024), the Seventh Circuit held that the DTSA applies extraterritorially to a defendant’s worldwide conduct, including foreign sales, so long as “an act in furtherance” of the trade secret misappropriation was committed in the United States.
- The DTSA Does Not Preempt State Trade Secret Laws. Plaintiffs can, and frequently do, assert both federal DTSA and state trade secret law claims in the same litigation.7
- The DTSA Allows for Recovery of Attorney’s Fees. The DTSA’s fee-shifting provision allows courts to award reasonable attorney’s fees to the “prevailing party” if a trade secret misappropriation claim was brought in bad faith or if the misappropriation itself was willful and malicious.8
Footnotes
1 https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/1890/all-actions.
2 Lex Machina 2026 Trade Secret Litigation Report (LexisNexis 2026).
3 Motorola Solutions, Inc. v. Hytera Communications Corp. Ltd., 108 F.4th 458 (7th Cir. 2024).
4 Insulet Corp. v. EOFlow Co., 779 F. Supp. 3d 124 (D. Mass. 2025).
5 Lex Machina 2026 Trade Secret Litigation Report (LexisNexis 2026).
6 Id.
7 See 18 U.S.C. § 1838.
8 See 18 U.S.C. § 1836(b)(3)(D).
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