An early decision construing the Defend Trade Secrets Act's ex parte civil seizure remedy denies the order as unnecessary, modeling the preservation-and-TRO path most courts now follow.
A Utah court granted a DTSA ex parte seizure where the defendants had supplied false information, hidden and moved files, and possessed the technical skill to defeat an ordinary injunction—a rare case clearing the statute's high bar.
An Indiana court held that a Rule 65 temporary restraining order can authorize the seizure of a defendant's laptop to preserve trade-secret evidence, sidestepping the DTSA's stringent ex parte seizure provision entirely.
The earliest civil seizure order under the Defend Trade Secrets Act issued only after a temporary restraining order failed, modeling seizure as the remedy of last resort rather than first resort.
