The Reason Was That The Lower Court Prejudicially Misallocated The Burden Of Dis-Proof To The Defense.
Misallocation of the burden of proof, if not harmless error, can lead to disastrous results. That was the case in Comet Technologies USA, Inc. v. XP Power, LLC, 181 F.4th 988 (9th Cir. July 14, 2026) [published]. There, the lower court prejudicially misallocated the burden of proof by having the defendant to disprove that the trade secrets were not readily ascertainable by proper means—that burden fell on plaintiffs. The result was that a jury verdict of $40 million and a fee award under the Defend Trade Secrets Act of over $17 million went POOF! on appeal.