Covington & Burling

Firm overview:

White-shoe law firm Covington & Burling has a global presence with six of its 14 offices in the US. The multi-disciplinary firm handles complex bet-the-company litigation, covering intellectual property, antitrust, class action, and insurance recovery.

Its trade secrets practice covers corporate transactions, teaming, vendor and subcontracting arrangements, employment relationships and litigation.

The firm played a leading role in the early stages of federal trade secrets law, having represented the Protect Trade Secrets Coalition of industry leaders in the technology, life sciences, manufacturing, and oil and gas sectors in the legislative effort to enact the 2016 federal Defend Trade Secrets Act.

Covington has litigated major trade secret matters in federal and state trial and appellate courts across the US, and before the Federal Trade Commission and the International Trade Commission.

Team overview:

Covington’s trade secrets team includes members of the firm’s data security, privacy, IP, trade, white collar, employment, corporate, insurance, public policy, and crisis management practices. Together these groups advise clients on protecting business-critical information and litigating trade secret disputes.

Senior counsel Dan Johnson is a key trade secrets practitioner based in Washington, DC. His extensive trial experience has resulted in bench verdicts, jury verdicts and arbitration awards in favour of his clients. These include trial victories in multimillion-dollar trade secret cases, complex business litigation arising from prime-sub relationships, and other business disputes.

Palo Alto-based partner Kurt Calia is recognised as a top trade secrets lawyer in California. His clients are in pharmaceutical chemistry, biotechnology, biomedical and mechanical devices, aerospace and defence, business methods, microprocessors, and software. He has particularly deep involvement in the aerospace and defence industry.

Robert Fram, senior counsel in San Francisco; and Robert Haslam, senior counsel in Silicon Valley, are both recognised as WIPR Leaders and count trade secrets among their practices.

Key matters:

• Insulet v EOFlow et al, US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

Covington represents Korean insulin pump manufacturer EOFlow, defendant in a Massachusetts federal court case brought by Insulet, which accuses its rivals of using its proprietary information in the EO Patch 2 pump.

In October 2024, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed an injunction by a Massachusetts district court, which prevented EOFlow from selling insulin pump patches allegedly made using Insulet’s trade secrets, finding that the lower court had erred in issuing the ban.

EOFlow’s motion to dismiss the case on the basis of a three-year statute of limitation was rejected by the court, meaning the case will proceed to jury trial.

Donnelly, Conroy and Gelhaar, and Cooley, also represent EOFlow et al.

Goodwin Procter is counsel for Insulet.

• Adocia v Eli Lilly, US District Court for the Southern District of Indiana

Led by partner Marney Cheek, a Covington team represented Eli Lilly in a trade secrets dispute with French biotech company Adocia.

After a collaboration between the two companies to co-develop an ultra-rapid insulin treatment for diabetics turned sour, plaintiff Adocia alleged that Lilly had misappropriated its trade secrets and claimed $1.8 billion.

But an arbitration tribunal unanimously rejected Adocia’s claims, concluding that Lilly did not engage in any wrongdoing and ruling for Lilly on all elements of its defences.

Adocia was represented by Jones Day.

• Video Gaming Technologies v Castle Hill Gaming, US District Court

for the Northern District Of Oklahoma

Covington represented Video Gaming Technologies in trademark and trade secret litigation against Castle Hill Gaming relating to Class II gaming terminals.

• PSKW v McKesson Specialty Arizona, Supreme Court of New York

After being retained months prior to trial following nearly a decade of litigation, Covington, led by partner Clara Shin, obtained a successful defence verdict for a subsidiary of McKesson Corporation in a bench trial.

Plaintiff PSKW had alleged breach of a non-disclosure agreement and trade secret misappropriation related to a drug discount programme. It sought the assignment of certain McKesson patents and half a billion dollars, comprising nearly $250 million in damages and 11.5 years-worth of prejudgment interest.

Clients:

Baoshan Iron & Steel, Caliper Life Sciences, EOFlow, Eli Lilly, Hewlett-Packard, McKesson, National Geographic, Protect Trade Secrets Coalition, Video Gaming Technologies