By Memorandum Order entered by The Honorable Richard G. Andrews in Lithero, LLC v. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, Civil Action No. 19-2320-RGA (D.Del. August 13, 2020), the Court found that Plaintiff failed to plead a plausible trade secret misappropriation claim under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”) despite the fact that the Court had granted Plaintiff’s motion for leave to file its complaint under seal to avoid any possible public disclosure. The Court explained that “to adequately plead trade secret misappropriation under the DTSA, a plaintiff must identify a trade secret with sufficient particularity so as to provide notice to a defendant of what he is accused of misappropriating and for a court to determine whether misappropriation has or is threatened to occur.” Id. at *2 (internal quotations omitted).
In finding that Plaintiff failed to plausibly plead a trade secret misappropriation claim the Court noted that Plaintiff’s complaint only described the alleged trade secret in broad terms and pointed to large, general areas of information that Plaintiff allegedly shared with Defendant but did not identify what constitutes the trade secrets within those general areas. Id. at *3. Without knowing what in those general areas of information shared is a trade secret, the complaint does not put Defendant on sufficient notice of what it is accused of misappropriating. Id. Thus, the Court found that Plaintiff’s complaint failed to plausibly plead a trade secret misappropriation claim and, therefore, granted Defendant’s motion to dismiss the claim.
Also, given that the action was brought under federal question jurisdiction and the trade secret misappropriation claim under the DTSA was the only claim over which the Court had original jurisdiction, the Court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims in Plaintiff’s complaint and dismissed the complaint in its entirety without prejudice. Id. at *3-4.
A copy of the Memorandum Order is attached.