Comet awarded $40m in semiconductor trade secrets suit
California-based Comet Technologies has been handed a $40 million reward by a jury in a trade secret case against rival XP Power, which it claimed poached employees and misappropriated its trade secrets relating to semiconductor manufacturing.
Comet alleged that three of its former staffers had conspired to join rival XP Power and stole trade secrets related to its new semiconductor manufacturing technology upon leaving the company.
On Wednesday, March 23, a California jury ruled that XP used three out of four alleged stolen trade secrets, but only two of the secrets resulted in damages to Comet.
As a result, the jury awarded Comet $5 million in damages for the misappropriation of a trade secret relating to “Da Vinci RF Generator Control” and $15 million for misappropriation of confidential information pertaining to its “Next Generation RF Matching Network”, for a total of $20 million in compensatory damages.
It also ruled that Comet proved that XP had “willfully and maliciously” appropriated one or more of the trade secrets. Therefore, a further $20 million was awarded in punitive damages.
‘Conspired to lie’
Comet claimed that XP Power had misappropriated four of its trade secrets in a complaint submitted to the US District Court for the Northern District of California in November 2020.
Former Comet employees Douglas Beuerman, Christopher Mason, and Eiji Mori had all conspired to leave Comet in 2017 and “plotted to steal” Comet technology and business secrets in their move to XP, the company said.
According to the complaint, the three received job offers from XP in January 2018, and the employees “conspired to lie” during exit interviews about their intent to compete at XP.
“After Beuerman’s own exit interview where he repeatedly lied about his plans, Beuerman discussed with Mori via email his hope that Mason would not slip up and reveal their competitive plans,” the complaint said.
On January 16, 2018, one day after Beuerman gave notice of his resignation, both Mason and Mori simultaneously gave their notice.
Prior to leaving the company, the employees accessed and downloaded “over one hundred documents” related to Comet’s latest IP developments related to its “Da Vinci” project, which is related to the development of new RF Generators used in semiconductor manufacturing.
Trade secrets related to pricing and manufacturing capacity for the project was then shown to senior XP employees and officers “for XP’s benefit in competing with Comet”.
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