IP Law Daily, TRADE SECRETS—Fed. Cir.: Medical device company’s $59.4 million judgment and injunction against South Korean competitor reversed, (May 29, 2026)

By Saurabh Kashyap, B.A., M.A., LL.B., LL.M.

Insulet, a manufacturer of a wearable insulin patch pump, knew or should have known of the alleged trade secret misappropriation more than three years before filing suit.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has reversed a Massachusetts district court judgment awarding Insulet Corporation (Insulet) $25.8 million in compensatory damages, $33.6 million in exemplary damages, and a permanent injunction against EOFlow Co., Ltd. and associated entities (EOFlow), finding that Insulet’s trade secret claims under the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) were barred by the statute of limitations. The court concluded that Insulet knew or should have known before August 3, 2020, that former Insulet employees working with EOFlow had access to Insulet’s confidential information and that EOFlow’s competing insulin patch pump shared significant similarities with Insulet’s system. Because Insulet did not sue until August 3, 2023, the DTSA’s three-year limitations period had expired. The Federal Circuit therefore reversed the judgment and awarded costs to EOFlow (Insulet Corp. v. EOFlow Co., Ltd., No. 25-1807 (Fed. Cir. May 28, 2026)).

Background. Insulet is a Massachusetts-based medical device company that manufactures the Omnipod wearable insulin patch pump. EOFlow is a South Korean medical technology company that developed the EOPatch insulin patch pump. The dispute arose after EOFlow hired several former Insulet employees, including Steve DiIanni, Insulet’s former Director of Mechanical Engineering. The case involved four trade secrets relating to Insulet’s Omnipod and Omnipod Eros products: CAD files for the Omnipod, the design and manufacturing process for the Omnipod soft cannula, the Omnipod Eros design history file, and the Omnipod occlusion-detection algorithm. According to Insulet, DiIanni disclosed those trade secrets to EOFlow between March and May 2018, while assisting the company in developing the EOPatch 2.

Insulet filed this lawsuit in August 2023, asserting DTSA claims and patent infringement claims. The district court initially granted a preliminary injunction, but the Federal Circuit reversed, finding that the district court had failed to adequately address the statute of limitations issue and other key aspects of the trade secret analysis. Following remand, the district court denied competing motions for summary judgment and allowed the trade secret claims to proceed to trial. A jury found that EOFlow had misappropriated all four asserted trade secrets and awarded Insulet $170 million in compensatory damages and $282 million in exemplary damages. The district court later reduced the award to $25.8 million and $33.6 million, respectively, to avoid overlap with injunctive relief. It also entered a permanent injunction barring EOFlow from using or disclosing the trade secrets and from commercializing products developed using those secrets. EOFlow appealed.

Jurisdiction preserved. Before addressing the merits, the Federal Circuit considered whether it retained jurisdiction after Insulet dismissed its patent claims without prejudice. The court held that jurisdiction remained proper because the dismissal effectively operated as one with prejudice.

Citing Chamberlain Group, Inc. v. Skylink Technologies, Inc., 381 F.3d 1178 (Fed. Cir. 2004), the court explained that the effect of a dismissal, rather than its label, determines whether jurisdiction remains with the Federal Circuit. The court also noted that a dismissal that bars refiling functions as an adjudication on the merits. Because the patent claims alleged acts of infringement occurring in 2018 and were no longer capable of being refiled by January 2025, the court concluded that the dismissal was effectively with prejudice and that appellate jurisdiction existed.

Discovery rule. The central dispute on appeal concerned the DTSA’s statute of limitations. EOFlow argued that Insulet had sufficient information to discover the alleged misappropriation years before filing suit, while Insulet maintained that it lacked the facts necessary to identify the misappropriation until much later.

The Federal Circuit declined to decide whether the DTSA incorporates a traditional inquiry-notice standard or the discovery rule under Merck & Co. v. Reynolds, 559 U.S. 633 (2010). Instead, the court concluded that Insulet’s claims failed even under the more demanding discovery-rule standard applied in Merck. According to the court, the undisputed evidence demonstrated that Insulet knew or should have known before August 3, 2020, the facts necessary to plead trade secret misappropriation.

Access and similarity. The court determined that Insulet possessed evidence of both access and similarity before the critical date. Citing Leggett & Platt, Inc. v. Hickory Springs Manufacturing Co., 285 F.3d 1353, 1361 (Fed. Cir. 2002), the court explained that access to trade secrets through former employees, combined with similarities between competing products, can support a claim of misappropriation.

The record showed that Insulet knew by 2019 that DiIanni and other former Insulet personnel were helping EOFlow develop the EOPatch 2. Internal emails identified those individuals and recognized their involvement in the competing project. The court found that this knowledge established access to Insulet’s confidential information.

The court also found substantial evidence that Insulet knew of similarities between the EOPatch 2 and Omnipod well before August 2020. Insulet personnel attended the 2018 American Diabetes Association conference, where EOFlow displayed EOPatch 2 prototypes. Internal communications described EOFlow’s device as a “clone” of Omnipod and noted that it appeared “almost identical” to Insulet’s product. The court further pointed to publicly available product displays and materials that disclosed design features later relied upon in Insulet’s complaint. Taken together, the court concluded that Insulet possessed sufficient information to plead misappropriation more than three years before filing suit.

Single claim accrual. The Federal Circuit also rejected the district court’s approach of analyzing each trade secret separately for statute of limitations purposes. The court held that all four asserted trade secrets arose from the same alleged course of conduct and therefore constituted a single claim of misappropriation under the DTSA.

The court relied on Monolith Portland Midwest Co. v. Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp., 407 F.2d 288, 293 (9th Cir. 1969), to emphasize that trade secret claims focus on the breach of a confidential relationship rather than each subsequent use of information. Because DiIanni allegedly disclosed all four trade secrets during the same period, to the same recipient, and for the same purpose, the development of the EOPatch 2, the court concluded that all claims accrued together. Once Insulet knew or should have known of one actionable misappropriation, the statute of limitations began running on all related trade secret claims, including the occlusion-detection algorithm.

The court ultimately held that the jury’s finding that the claims were timely lacked substantial evidentiary support. It rejected Insulet’s arguments that it lacked access to detailed manufacturing information, precise dimensions, or internal algorithms before August 2020, concluding that such details were unnecessary to plead a trade secret claim. Because the evidence showed that Insulet knew or should have known of the alleged misappropriation before the critical date, the district court should have granted judgment as a matter of law in EOFlow’s favor.

Dissent. Circuit Judge Sharon Prost dissented, arguing that the majority effectively applied an inquiry-notice standard while purporting to apply the discovery rule. She maintained that substantial evidence supported the jury’s finding that Insulet neither discovered nor reasonably should have discovered the alleged misappropriation before August 2020. According to the dissent, the majority improperly treated suspicion as sufficient knowledge, adopted an overly broad access-plus-similarity framework, and substituted its own assessment of the evidence for that of the jury. Judge Prost would have upheld the jury’s findings on the statute of limitations and addressed EOFlow’s remaining challenges regarding trade secret validity, damages, and liability.

The Case is No. 25-1807.

Judge: Dyk, T.

Attorneys: Robert Carroll (Goodwin Procter LLP) for Insulet Corp. Elizabeth Prelogar (Cooley LLP) for EOFlow, Co. Ltd.

Companies: Insulet Corp.; EOFlow, Co. Ltd.

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