Two Billion Dollars Vacated: Proving Trade Secret Damages for the Plaintiff After the 2026 Reversals

Randall E. Kahnke, Partner | Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

Randall E. Kahnke is a partner in the Minneapolis office of Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, where he tries complex commercial and intellectual property cases, including trade secret disputes, for clients such as 3M, Boston Scientific Corporation, Cargill, Honeywell, IBM, and Target. Together with the former deputy director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization, he co-edits the treatise Trade Secrets (Law Journal Press) and the book The Secrets to Winning Trade Secret Cases (Thomson West). He has served as lead trial attorney in matters from New York to California that reach across three continents, and he previously headed the firm’s business litigation practice.

• Education & Credentials

Randy earned his J.D. cum laude in 1989 from the University of Minnesota Law School, where he was note and comment editor of the Law Review, after completing his B.A. summa cum laude at the University of St. Thomas in 1986. He clerked for the Hon. David S. Doty of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota from 1989 to 1991. He is admitted to practice in Minnesota, before the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second, Eighth, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits, and in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.

• Recognition & Leadership

Chambers USA ranks Randy nationwide in Intellectual Property: Trade Secrets (2025-26) and in Minnesota for General Commercial Litigation (2005-26). World IP Review listed him as recommended for U.S. Trade Secrets in 2024, and Benchmark Litigation has named him a Future Star in Intellectual Property. The Best Lawyers in America recognizes him for Intellectual Property Litigation (2013-27), Commercial Litigation (2009-27), and Bet-the-Company Litigation (2022-27), and named him 2027 Lawyer of the Year in Bet-the-Company Litigation. Minnesota Lawyer has honored him as an Attorney of the Year (2012, 2025), on its POWER 30 Business Litigation list (2022-25), and in the Minnesota Legal 250 for Business Litigation (2026).

• Professional Involvement

Randy was an inaugural member of the Sedona Conference steering committee on trade secrets and sits on the Trade Secrets Committee of the Intellectual Property Owners Association. He is a Master of the Honorable Jimmie V. Reyna I.P. Inn of Court and a past president and director of the Minnesota Chapter of the Federal Bar Association. He has co-chaired the magistrate merit selection panel for the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota and served on that court’s Federal Practice Committee. He speaks and publishes widely on trade secret litigation, including a 2017 Georgia IP Law Institute program on the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act and recurring trade secret updates for the Midwest IP Institute.

• Experience

Randy’s trade secret trial work includes a federal jury verdict for a leading medical products manufacturer on trade secret claims and a multimillion-dollar jury verdict for a Fortune 100 company on tortious interference with contracts protecting trade secrets and confidential information. He held a key trial testimony role in a six-year, billion-dollar pharmaceutical trade secret dispute that ended in a permanent injunction, and he won dismissal in the Central District of California, upheld on appeal in the Ninth Circuit, of claims that a Chinese corporation took British trade secrets valued at more than $100 million. He also obtained a favorable resolution after a multiweek Delaware Chancery Court trial on breach-of-contract and trade secret claims, and his matters include Honeywell’s 2023 jury trial win in an Ohio trade secrets case. Beyond trade secrets, he secured a $56 million trial judgment in Delaware for a Fortune 5 company on representations and warranties claims following a $750 million acquisition.

Bryan K. Washburn, Partner | Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

Bryan K. Washburn is a partner in the Minneapolis office of Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, where his practice centers on trade secret and noncompete litigation, alongside complex commercial disputes and international arbitration. He handles trade secret matters from the earliest stage, investigating suspected theft before suit, bringing claims on behalf of trade secret owners, and defending against misappropriation allegations.

• Education & Credentials

Bryan earned his J.D. with highest distinction from the University of Iowa College of Law in 2015, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif, and his B.S. cum laude from Truman State University in 2011. He clerked for the Hon. Donovan W. Frank of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota from 2017 to 2018. He is admitted to practice in Minnesota.

• Recognition & Leadership

The Best Lawyers in America has recognized Bryan as a “Ones to Watch” honoree in Commercial Litigation from 2021 through 2027. Faegre Drinker presented him with its Pro Bono Award in 2024 and placed him on its Pro Bono Honor Roll in 2022 and 2024, and he was named to the Faegre Baker Daniels Pro Bono Honor Roll in 2016 and 2018-19.

• Professional Involvement

Bryan’s firm insights track the trade secret damages decisions shaping current practice, including the Virginia Supreme Court’s affirmance of the vacated $2 billion verdict in Appian Corp. v. Pegasystems, Inc. (2026), the flexible damages approach approved in Syntel Sterling Best Shores Mauritius Ltd. v. The TriZetto Group Inc. (2026), the Fifth Circuit’s DTSA damages guidance in Computer Sciences Corp. v. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (2025), and the Ninth Circuit’s burden-of-proof ruling in Comet Technologies USA, Inc. v. XP Power, LLC (2026). He has also written on the extraterritorial reach of the Defend Trade Secrets Act for Juriste International (2025) and presented in the firm’s CLE webinar series Trade Secrets: Recent Developments and Hot Topics in 2021, 2023, and 2024.

• Experience

Bryan represents businesses on both sides of trade secret litigation, from pre-suit investigation of alleged theft through filing actions for owners and defending misappropriation claims, and he advises clients on their trade secret protection policies and procedures. He also represents employers in restrictive covenant disputes over the enforceability and scope of noncompete and nonsolicitation agreements, including pre-suit investigations and demands. In international arbitration, he has represented U.S. clients before foreign tribunals and international clients before domestic tribunals in contract and post-merger disputes. His pro bono practice focuses on tenant housing rights, and he played an integral role on the team that won a 17-day trial for a tenants’ advocacy organization against a major Minneapolis landlord, resulting in a large sanctions award.

SESSION 1 – Structuring the Owner’s Trade Secret Case So the Damages Award Survives Appeal | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

This session examines why large trade secret damages awards—including a $2 billion verdict, a $75 million verdict, and a $20 million verdict—were vacated or reversed on appeal in 2025–2026, and what plaintiff-side attorneys must do differently at the trial-court level to prevent the same outcome. Attorneys will learn the structural requirements for an appeal-proof damages case: per-secret valuation, affirmative proximate-cause proof, trade secret identification specificity, damages theory segregation, and burden preservation under the DTSA. Attendees will leave with a concrete checklist they can apply from complaint drafting through jury instruction conference.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – Building the Per-Secret Damages Report and Trial Presentation for the Trade Secret Owner | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

This session teaches plaintiff-side attorneys how to construct a modular, per-secret damages expert report and trial presentation that can survive partial liability findings, post-trial motions, and appellate review. Drawing on the 2026 reversals in Trinseo and Appian and the surviving model in TriZetto, attorneys will learn the structural requirements for apportioned damages models, verdict form design with per-secret interrogatories, and the methodological demands imposed by amended Rule 702. Attendees will leave with a framework for building lost-profits, unjust-enrichment, and reasonable-royalty calculations that remain legally defensible even when only a subset of alleged trade secrets survive to verdict.