Salesforce.com, Inc. v. GEA, Inc.
- Jon Tigar
- 4:19-cv-01710
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Salesforce.com v. GEA, Judge Tse ordered GEA to provide more specific trade-secret disclosures before taking related discovery.
Salesforce received an order requiring GEA to provide a more detailed trade-secrets disclosure. GEA must serve the amended disclosure by December 21, 2020, and may not take discovery about the alleged trade secrets until it does so.
What happened
In Salesforce.com, Inc. v. GEA, Inc., Salesforce asked the court to require GEA to describe its alleged trade secrets more specifically under California law. Salesforce argued that GEA’s existing disclosure did not provide enough detail.
The court agreed that GEA’s disclosure did not identify the trade secrets with enough detail to let Salesforce understand the limits of the case and discovery. The court ordered GEA to provide an amended disclosure addressing each trade secret’s description, background, economic value, secrecy measures, and specific elements.
Judge Tse granted Salesforce’s request to compel. GEA must serve the amended disclosure by December 21, 2020, and may not take discovery about the alleged trade secrets until it serves that disclosure.
The detailed version
- Salesforce.com, Inc. v. GEA, Inc. · No. 4:19-cv-01710
- Jon Tigar
- Dec. 4, 2020
Background
Salesforce asked the court to compel GEA to disclose its alleged trade secrets with greater specificity under California Code of Civil Procedure section 2019.210. The court held a discovery hearing on the parties’ joint letter and memorialized its oral ruling in this order.
Section 2019.210 requires a party claiming trade-secret misappropriation to identify the trade secret with “reasonable particularity” before taking discovery related to it. The court explained that this requirement does not require the claimant to provide every detail at the beginning of the case or require the court to conduct a trial before discovery begins. It does require enough information to allow the court to control discovery, protect proprietary information, and give the opposing party a fair opportunity to prepare its case or defense.
Court’s Analysis
The court agreed with Salesforce that GEA’s existing disclosure lacked enough detail for Salesforce to determine the boundaries of the claimed trade secrets. The court ordered GEA to amend its disclosure to make clear what it claimed each trade secret was.
The amended disclosure must include:
- A summary of each specific trade secret;
- The trade secret’s background and an explanation of how it obtained actual or potential economic value from not being generally known to the public;
- An explanation of the reasonable efforts used to keep each trade secret secret; and
- Each precise claimed trade secret, numbered and accompanied by a list of its specific elements, in a format resembling patent claims.
The court also stated that the disclosure did not need to explain how the alleged trade secrets differed from general knowledge in the field, but it had to provide enough detail for Salesforce to investigate and make that determination.
Ruling
Judge Alex G. Tse granted Salesforce’s request to compel. GEA was ordered to serve Salesforce with an amended trade-secrets disclosure by December 21, 2020. GEA was not permitted to take discovery relating to the alleged trade secrets until it served the amended disclosure.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.