Trinseo Europe GmbH v. Kellogg Brown & Root, L.L.C., et al.

Trinseo Europe GmbH sued under the Defend Trade Secrets Act alleging the theft of 10 trade secrets, all relating to one system that has always been licensed as an integrated package. Trinseo offered trial testimony supporting $130 million in damages but did not artificially divide up that valuation per trade secret. After trial, a jury found misappropriation of some but not all the alleged secrets (four of 10) and awarded some but not all the alleged damages— approximately $77 million of the $130 million requested. Importing a patent-law practice that it conceded was an “imperfect overlay,” the district court vacated the damages award in a post-trial judgment as a matter of law ruling. App.86. It determined that because Trinseo had not undertaken “strict apportionment,” App.52-53—apportioning damages per trade secret or prescribing a methodology to do so—the jury had no legally sufficient basis to attribute damages to the four misappropriated secrets it ultimately found. The Fifth Circuit took issue with the district court’s labeling of its approach as “strict,” but endorsed the same position: Absent a per-trade-secret apportionment showing or methodology, a damages award will amount to “speculation” with “no basis” as a matter of law. App.18, 23. Trinseo thus received no damages, not $77 million, for the proven theft of its secrets. The question presented is: Whether, where a jury finds misappropriation of some but not all alleged trade secrets, the jury’s damages award has no legally sufficient basis unless the trial evidence apportioned damages per trade secret or prescribed a methodology to do so. (i)