Plastronics Socket Partners v. Highrel Inc.
United States District Court for the District of Arizona
2019 WL 2054362 (2019)

- Written by Rich Walter, JD
Facts
Dong Weon Hwang and Paul Shubring (defendants) were highly skilled employees who quit Plastronics Socket Partners Ltd. (Plastronics) (plaintiff) to start their own companies, which competed against Plastronics. Plastronics brought a federal suit against those companies and Highrel Inc. (defendants) for patent infringement. Plastronics’s complaint also included charges that Hwang and Shubring, both of whom had signed nondisclosure agreements with Plastronics, had violated Arizona’s version of the Uniform Trade Secrets Act by misappropriating Plastronics’s trade secrets. The complaint listed 53 broad categories of Plastronics’s confidential information that Hwang and Shubring allegedly targeted for misappropriation and recited state and federal statutory definitions of the terms trade secret and misappropriation. However, the complaint did not specify (1) what pieces of information Hwang and Shubring allegedly took from each category of information, (2) in what respects each piece of information constituted a trade secret, or (3) in what manner each piece of information was misappropriated. Hwang and Shubring filed a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss the misappropriation charges.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Brnovich, J.)
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