Federal Circuit Holds Defend Trade Secrets Act Claim Untimely Filed

In Insulet Corp. v. EOFlow, Co., No. 25-1807 (Fed. Cir. May 28, 2026), the Federal Circuit reversed the district court, holding EOFlow was entitled to judgment as a matter of law because Insulet’s Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”) claim was untimely under the governing statute of limitations.

The DTSA requires a plaintiff to file its complaint within three years after the misappropriation was discovered or, through reasonable diligence, should have been discovered. Insulet filed suit in August 2023, alleging that EOFlow hired several former Insulet employees and used Insulet’s confidential information about its Omnipod product to develop EOFlow’s next-generation insulin patch pump, the EOPatch 2. The appeal turned on whether Insulet knew or should have known of the alleged misappropriation before the critical date of August 2020. To resolve that question, the Federal Circuit assessed whether Insulet had reason to suspect both: 1) that EOFlow had access to Insulet’s Omnipod trade secrets; and 2) that EOFlow’s EOPatch 2 appeared sufficiently similar to those trade secrets.

The majority held Insulet knew, or with reasonable diligence should have known, of its DTSA claim before the critical date. Relying on Insulet emails from March 2019, the Majority reasoned Insulet knew that key former employees, with knowledge of Insulet’s Omnipod product, had joined EOFlow, and that EOFlow was developing EOPatch 2 during this period. Furthermore, the majority emphasized that evidence showed Insulet observed similarities between the EOPatch 2 and Omnipod through: visiting EOFlow’s conference booths in 2018 and 2019, monitoring EOFlow website in 2018, and having access to an EOFlow prospectus published in 2020, all of which depicted various EOPatch 2 features.

Taken together, the majority held that this information was sufficient to put Insulet on inquiry notice of alleged misappropriation, specifically, that EOFlow had access to Insulet’s trade secrets and was developing a product with similar features. Because Insulet did not file suit within three years of that point, the court concluded that the DTSA claim was time-barred.

Judge Prost dissented, arguing that the majority impermissibly reweighed the evidence rather than reviewing in the light most favorable to Insulet. In her view, genuine factual disputes remained as to what Insulet knew and when, and those disputes were properly resolved by the jury.

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