$50 Million Connecticut Trade Secrets Award

From the Hartford Courant (a paper I delivered for many years), a report on a big trade secrets verdict.
Dur-A-Flex, an East Hartford maker of floor and tile products claimed that a former longtime customer, Laticrete International (also from Connecticut) copied its process for bonding paint to sand in order to make tile grout and started manufacturing an identical product on its own. Dur-A-Flex had provided the product to Laticrete under a confidentiality agreement covering the manufacturing process.

The jury awarde Dur-A-Flex $43.7 million and the court tacked on $600,000 for royalties and $6 million in attorney fees.

According to the Courant, it is notoriously difficult to get paint, an organic compound, to bond with an inorganic compound such as sand.

Laticrete, not surprisingly, says it will appeal.