Who has standing to sue for trade secret misappropriation? Can a person sue to protect a trade secret they misappropriated from someone else? Is mere "possession" of the trade secret enough for standing to sue and entitlement to a remedy? Or does a complainant have to prove they are the "owner" of the trade secret in a more formal sense?
A new case suggests the answer may be: "Yes, a person can probably sue to protect a trade secret that they misappropriated from someone else, at least under state law, but not under federal law."
A recent Tenth Circuit case, Snyder v. Beam, addresses this question for the first time. In this post, I'll discuss Snyder and its implications, and I will also highlight a 2023 article by Charles Tait Graves, revealing that this issue had been boiling up on the state law side for some time. Snyder did not come out of the blue. Rather, the passage of a federal trade secret statute with a divergent rule has simply brought the issue to the fore.