Medidata Solutions, Inc. v. Veeva Systems Inc.

Background

Veeva moved in limine, meaning it asked the court to decide before trial whether certain evidence could be presented to the jury. Veeva sought to exclude portions of Jim Davies’s expert report estimating the product-development time it allegedly saved through misappropriation of Medidata’s trade secrets. Medidata opposed the motion and sought permission to update the report to account for an earlier summary-judgment ruling that eliminated certain trade-secret categories that Medidata had not sufficiently described.

The Davies Report discussed typical development timelines for electronic data capture products and clinical trial management system products. It stated that Veeva’s faster development of its products showed that Veeva had received a “head start” from access to and use of Medidata information. The report also identified alleged instances in which former Medidata employees working for Veeva knew about Medidata trade secrets and allegedly used particular information or documents.

Rule 702 analysis

The court applied Federal Rule of Evidence 702, which requires expert testimony to be based on reliable data and methods and to assist the jury. Courts act as gatekeepers by determining whether expert testimony has a reliable foundation and is relevant.

The court held that the report did not provide a reliable method for determining how much time Veeva allegedly saved through each identified use of each alleged trade-secret class. Instead, the report compared Veeva’s development times with timelines for comparable products and attributed the difference to trade-secret misappropriation. The court found that the report relied on the expert’s assertion and observations about other products, without explaining how particular alleged uses produced specific time savings. Presenting that opinion without a reliable method could cause the jury to give it undue weight.

The court stated that a general explanation of how access to confidential product-development information could help a competitor develop a product faster was understandable to a jury and required expert testimony only to the extent it explained how specific alleged misappropriation reduced development time. The court rejected Medidata’s argument that the report’s shortcomings affected only the weight, rather than the admissibility, of the testimony.

Comparable-product timelines

The report used development timelines for two electronic data capture products and one clinical trial management system product to estimate typical development periods. The court said objections to Davies’s experience and knowledge of those products would ordinarily concern the weight of his testimony. However, because the report used those timelines to support a head-start opinion for which it had no reliable methodology, the timelines themselves were also inadmissible.

Ruling

Judge Lorna G. Schofield granted Veeva’s motion in limine. The court ordered that, at trial, Medidata could not introduce Davies’s opinion that the difference between Veeva’s development times and the comparable products’ timelines resulted from alleged trade-secret misappropriation. Medidata also could not introduce evidence of the development timelines for the other electronic data capture and clinical trial management system products identified in the report, because the report used those timelines to quantify the alleged head start.

The court limited any testimony by Davies about resources Veeva allegedly saved through misappropriation to an explanation of how the alleged misappropriation would have assisted Veeva. The court denied Medidata’s request for leave to update the Davies Report as moot and directed the Clerk of Court to close the entries at Docket Numbers 417 and 421. This opinion decided the admissibility of expert evidence; it did not decide whether Veeva misappropriated Medidata’s trade secrets.