Liability stood, but the largest damages award in Virginia history collapsed over a single jury instruction. The case is a masterclass in trade-secret causation — and a warning that revenue is not damages.
The Tenth Circuit, in an opinion by then-Judge Gorsuch, upheld a $2.92 million reasonable-royalty award for stolen source code — confirming that a misappropriator can owe royalty damages for mere disclosure, with no proof of commercial use.
The Federal Circuit dismantled a $48.8 million trade-secret disgorgement award on three fronts at once — who decides it, how to apportion among secrets, and how long the unjust-enrichment clock runs once reverse engineering becomes possible.
The largest trade-secret award of its era recovered DuPont's actual loss for the theft of Kevlar know-how — then collapsed because the jury never heard the evidence that might have shown the secrets were not secret at all.
