Theravectys SA v. Immune Design Corp., C.A. No. 9950-VCN (Del. Ch. Mar. 8, 2015), is a Delaware Chancery opinion that may be useful for its application of the well-worn prerequisites that must be satisfied for obtaining preliminary injunctive relief.
The following three points from this 30-page decision, (the first 20 of which are mostly a recitation of complicated facts involving the manufacture of experimental vaccines), likely have the widest application to those practicing commercial and corporate litigation:
- although in some instances the difficulty in quantifying damages may be a helpful factor in establishing the irreparable harm requirement for injunctive relief, the court will not assume the existence of irreparable harm simply because it is difficult to quantify;
- the court describes those circumstances in which it may be permissible to interfere with and therefore defend successfully, a claim for tortious interference with contractual relations;
- it seems basic, but the court addresses the statutory definition of a trade secret–which naturally must be satisfied before a claim for misappropriation of a trade secret can be established, and if one can reverse-engineer a product from publicly available information, then it may not be a trade secret.