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Trade secret misappropriation filings reached new highs in federal district courts in 2025, underscoring a sustained increase in enforcement activity. Claimants filed more than 1,500 such lawsuits in 2025, with recent cases shaped by shifting business practices, increased employee mobility, and the lasting impact of the Defend Trade Secrets Act. The newly released Lex Machina 2026 Trade Secret Litigation Report takes a close look at how these forces are reshaping trade secret litigation and what they mean for companies and counsel navigating allegations of misappropriation in the modern age.
Request your copy now on the Lex Machina Litigation Reports page.
“The Lex Machina 2026 Trade Secret Litigation Report provides a comprehensive analysis of federal trade secret litigation at a critical inflection point, with filings reaching an all-time high and emerging shifts toward state law claims,” said Emily Pavuluri, Assistant Director of Faculty Services and Lecturer in Law at Vanderbilt Law School. “This report offers valuable, data-driven insights into case timing, settlement patterns, and damage trends, helping counsel develop more effective litigation strategies for their clients.”
“By providing practical insights into Trade Secret litigation, the latest Lex Machina report aims to reassure legal practitioners of its value in supporting their work,” said Di Rivera, Lex Machina Legal Data Expert for IP Litigation Analytics. “The report features analytics that not only examine Trade Secret as a single practice area but also examine it in relation to other areas of the law, thus showing the real-life application of how Trade Secrets are litigated.”
After a temporary slowdown during the pandemic years, trade secret litigation has rebounded with renewed momentum. Recent data shows filings climbing to levels not previously seen, signaling that trade secret enforcement remains a critical tool for protecting competitive advantage. This growth reflects broader changes in how companies operate, compete, and manage confidential information.
More than 80% of federal trade secret cases continue to include DTSA claims, underscoring the statute’s enduring influence. At the same time, recent trends suggest that litigants are reassessing how they structure trade secret claims. State-law-only trade secret claims, which declined steadily for years after DTSA’s introduction, have begun to reappear more frequently in federal courts. This shift may reflect changing strategic considerations around remedies, early relief, and forum selection.
Defend Trade Secrets Act case filings in federal district courts, 2016-2025
Trade secret disputes often arise alongside other business and intellectual property conflicts. Plaintiffs commonly assert trade secret misappropriation together with claims involving other intellectual property rights as well as breaches of employment-related contracts.
This layering of claims contributes to the complexity of trade secret litigation and helps explain why these cases can be difficult to resolve early. For litigants, understanding how trade secret claims fit into broader enforcement strategies is essential for effective risk assessment and planning.
Trade secret cases are often fact-intensive, time-sensitive, and business-critical. The report goes beyond surface-level trends to examine how these disputes play out, including how procedural strategies are evolving and what that means for litigation outcomes. For legal and insurance professionals, these insights support more informed decisions around claim valuation, motion strategy, and settlement planning. For companies, they offer a clearer view of the risks and opportunities associated with protecting confidential information through litigation.
Lex Machina, the LexisNexis® Legal Analytics® platform, is built on comprehensive information derived from court filings that has been carefully cleaned, tagged, and normalized through a unique combination of artificial intelligence and manual review by subject-matter experts. By extracting key details like motion outcomes, trial verdicts, damage awards, and the attorneys involved, the platform transforms raw court records into structured insights for commercially relevant cases across federal courts and an expanding range of state courts – now including docket-level data for more than 1,300 venues. With the industry’s most comprehensive and powerful litigation dataset, Lex Machina enables companies and law firms to make data-empowered decisions for case strategy and business development.
In an April 2025 survey, over 95% of law firm professionals agreed that data analytics are valuable to their practices. Is your team ready to move from conversation to action? Visit the Lex Machina product page for more information and to sign up for a free demonstration and customized analytical report.