the the fact remains that there are there is there was a conspiracy with regard to the three and eighty's of turbo usa villain franken and hans rock and those conspiracy allegations still remain the settlement doesn't remove the allegation t just eliminate our ability to proceed separately against us from going on those so turning to the district court order that precipitated this appeal your honour's we submit that in dismissing eighty's allegations of trade secret misappropriation the district court committed three errors of law that warrant were versal firstly with regard to the district courts two primary bases for dismissing a d b s complaint those concern the issues of statute of limitations and the measures that were taken by a t p to protect its trade secrets and those are two highly facts of this if again queries and on both at the pleading the district court misapplied or mischaracterized the allegations in our complaint and then on the basis of those mischaracterized allegations proceeded to draw inferences adverse to a b and then furthermore compound ing that there the district court then misapplied the law to conclude that there was no basis on which a b b could proceed with its the entirety of the district court's evaluation of our extensive complaint with regard to the trade secret issues was that those allegations were quote vague and devoid of dates facts and specifics  s five particular categories of trade secret information really the types of prepared information that is customary intuitional for the type of engineering operations that are at issue here so for example   or detailed information on specifications about the actual delivered turbocharger product so a t v maintains a database that correlates the products that is deliver to the customers that receive them that actually is material information if you're in the business of service and for example a turbocharger that is located in an ocean going vessel where if if that vessel is making for and require a service party that actually rendering the service usa was and to run it in the business of repairing these these machines that's right so if i could and you just said i think that in order to do that they needed this information it or to do that in a way that would make their services more attractive and hance their ability to compete with my clients that is a beneficial piece of information that would be very useful to a information and until you have specified the things you consider secret it's hard to know that there is a plausible narrative here that they had something  trade secrets excuse me there's there's nothing internally inconsistent that and that's essentially the you know the sort of the conundrum that the district court believed to exist that one has to be privy to the types of information that he contends to be trade secret information in order even to exist in this space and that simply is not the case it is possible for somebody to compete honestly and without the basis of misappropriated trade secrets so merely the presence of another competitor in this market isn't enough to trigger you know the police that somebody has misappropriated trade secrets and i w about the in the details of the complaint the the trial judge actually your honor never identified with any real particulary what he found to be defective about the level of detail concerning our trade secret allegations but he told you the problem was the absence of particularly well it is the burden on him to rewrite your complaint absolutely not your honor but we would submit that where a district court judge is making an assessment that pleadings fail to satisfy a quantity and at all that it is incumbent upon a district court judge to identify what elements of the cause of action we have supposedly failed to meet i mean that would for example give us the opportunity to approach to district court and seek leave to amend here there was simply no guides and we have we have paragraphs upon paragraphs of allegations about the trade secret misappropriation that for example begin with allegations of of cash being paid in a parking garage in zurich switzerland in exchange for a b b trade secret information this is the quintessential case of misappropriation where a former employee of the parts of the company situation your honour's of a party where with specific inside information having been employed by my client for seventeen years he knows where to go you know his source of mention names are looking at seventy three level of precision that we have laid out here is insufficient to satisfy public ball was not a standard of probability of the standard of plausibility and having recited allegations that must be accepted as true of the pleading stage of targeted efforts to obtain trade secret information from and these at our from and individual our clients were efforts were then made to cover the asshole effort where people didn't use email at least not in these initial contacts these were done as face to face exchanges where past money was exchanged for so and then the others for example the other aspect of the of the business for both on that interval usa was servicing turbochargers and so for example roman at two refers the information for disassembly and re assembly of our turbochargers these are complex devices those details about how somebody is to go off ahead and service a turbocharger is also a trade secret that's plainly alleged in that it was i should know this by now but ab turbo was it also in the business of servicing and providing replacement parts yes ron they would manufacture drano young parts of course using their own internal trade secrets and then they would service vessels on the basis of those parts so you know we're we're left here with with allegations that from the from the both from the perspective of the initial accusation of the trade secrets all the way to the use today  which our complaint was dismissed i do understand there was a footnote that did make reference to twamley at all but the fundamental issues on which our complaint was dismissed were number one statute of limitations very fact must have had an inkling that was the judges work an inkling that something was amiss well that's not the standard for for triggering the duty of a village and under the statute of limitations that's not something that would put us reasonably on notice but more math that's plainly an instance where the district court judge with all respect through an inference that adverse to us the inference that is most reasonable to draw on the basis of our holiday sions is that totally ned and frank and took steps to cover their tracks and they were good at they were effective that they did things in such a way that they would be on and so those allegations from the four corners of the complaint there is absolutely nothing that would show that the statute of limitations began to run three years before the complaint response on that issue the district court judge makes no findings even as to when the statute allegedly began to rock he just simply says well the allegations are so widespread that it must have triggered of this than english secondly with regard to the alternative ground on which the district court dismissed the action that was on the sufficiency of the measures taken by a navy to protect its protective trade secrets and in that regard it just report judge actually made a finding or through an inference either one that is directly contrary to the express allegations in the complaint paragraph thirty five of the complaint says that eighty be used all of the time honored and widely and well accepted techniques to protect its trade secrets the laws clear that just because there's been a breach of those call it a pleasing dichotomy either you didn't have sufficient protections in place in which case you fail that aspect of the trade secret plan or you had sufficient protections in place and they were made known muted and move accompanied by an amended complaint to respond to the trial court's considerations that seems to be an interesting in strong argument with what's the answer to that there are other issues your honor with regard to three different bases on which the district court dismissed are our plans the first with regard to statute of limitations we is clear that there's nothing on the face of the complaint that would show that the statute began to run at any point in time unless there's nothing else to amend to add moreover our complaint also recites all of the the responses to defeat that affirmative defense in other words the act of concealment is already in the complaint so we would submit that nothing would need to be added to address the statute of limitations concerns that the district court raised with regard to build the measures that took to protect our trade secrets which was alternative bases again there to the measures that we have alleged to be sufficient protection have been found after full bench trials in cases to be sufficient so there too we would contend there's really nothing more to be s allegations over dozens and dozens of paragraphs we had no insight at all into what we could say that would help address some of the district court pleadings concerns and so if there was just simply no basis on which  we thought we could really effectively move to amend to address the district court's concerns illustration in the briefing that accompanied the motions to dismiss for example we explained a bit more about the timing at which we discovered the  we go through each of the elements of the cause of action and in our opening brief as well and for every one of those we identified case authority that shows that the the scope of our allegations are sufficient there is no requirement there's no heightened pleading with wireman imposed on trade secret plan to speed as measured going to rule eight will nine and so for every one of these weeks we looked at the case law iraq and we couldn't find a case that would say to us that we we fell short in any one of the elements of the cause of action of trade secret misappropriation under florida law and so where we did that research and where we didn't see any identification of a deficiency we really did come away without really any understanding as to what more we would do and we spelled that out in their faces that deal with the issues that that appealing is have raised on appeal and we would submit that i mean of halley's position your honor is tantamount to factual allegations we don't need to attach an expert declaration for example to a to make a verified complaint are factual allegations have been accepted by other ports as being sufficient and so it left us really with no place substantively we didn't know what more to add maybe would have been a better way for me to say ok we've gone way over so well we store two minutes of republic time for you which  minutes over so we'll add six minutes to the other side time to keep it even if you need  the saltier facts that they allege with respect to the meeting in zurich parking garages and whatnot that these allegations are generally contained in the complaint of paragraph seventy two ninety three but i would point out that all of those allegations relate to hans frank and her bill in that they do not relate to my clients well they might relate to your client on an issue that the district judge did not address but that you ask us to decide anyway which is a question of knowledge of improper means that the district court did not did not address that and those allegations could impact a number of the software allegations could relate to the question of knowledge in particular kerberos usas cooperation with this in what the complaint suggests was not entirely up of board efforts to secure might have a claim or two owners might have a claim against ponsonby don't have anything to do with the acquisition of these trade secrets those paragraphs and again there are seventy to ninety three i commend them guilty knowledge might in fact under the twenty to thirty years ago and then times allegedly manipulating how much money turbo usa overpaid to turbo med for the sake of getting money back and frankly it sounds to me like a zero sum game they haven't alleged any more than that  sufficient or insufficient specificity of paragraph thirty two of the complaint why isn't that allegation i don't i won't say it enough but why doesn't it in fact bear on whether there was improper means and i'm putting completely to one side here the question of not of the domestic willimon turbo usas knowledge of it which was not a ground on which the district court relied so let's assume they knew everything that congress knew because that was not a ground of the district courts dismissal why is it not in fact relevant to the question whether there was an acquisition of information by improper means that some of this was done by cash in a garage that is what the district court found to be lacking insufficient particularly in your and i would have to respectfully disagree as i believe that finding a black is sufficient particularities includes all the elements of the client which  particular has been extremely strict in its application upon billiard ball and i commended to this court the cases of simpson and sanctuary both of which are eleventh circuit cases where they held the parties to a very high standard of factual pleading in order to state a cause back to neither one of these free trade secret cases and then you just do or have you indicated that the plaintiff here knows more about the details out of this complaint that they would like this court to look to to say this is where we allege that terrible usa and willem had the requisite guilty knowledge for a florida trade secret question those are paragraphs one on nine and one ten from which they pull secrets were obtained illicitly it's merely says they had them and that they couldn't reverse engineer them we'll get to reverse engineering later but neither one of those really say that will or target usa knew these were improperly obtained and then in paragraph sixty three and sixty four they pulled out from those two paragraphs a general how a geisha that will was familiar with tribble us excuse me with a b b's business again there's nothing in of the cause of action that were condemned in it all they are indistinguishable from the allegation that the attorney general was the principal architect of this policy that is being challenged or that the f b i director was instrumental implementing it those kinds of eleven one twelve would be stricken in that first go through with more money they will be out of this case and so if you just take the gate paragraphs that a b b has identified as being the ones that are the best paragraphs and they listened by me in the complaint these seven individuals who were allegedly former chairman that employees who they said would testify but then again they don't provide us with any information that these gentlemen and ladies would provide er market and curvature character universe but they had this information and they had these capabilities under eleventh circuit case law what do you referring to now those allegations iran or ar in the eleventh circuit it is appropriate for the district court to look to those allegations to say the inference was i can draw from that contradict the essential elements of the cause of action and therefore the tape should be dismissed as the edwards versus prime case and the within the statute of limitations period that wouldn't be harmful you take your vote on the issue of the second limitations depending upon when that occurred it may either hurt them or help them depend on whether or not they knew about it or should have known about it within the three years prior to going actually alleged date but here we're talking not about that aspect of the case we're talking about williams guilty knowledge and will not be had guilty knowledge would not be trumpeting it to the world saying i've got this information which is deliberately obtained that allows me to service your cur advertising it if they thought that it was a little bit for them to have it or that they had a painted illicitly they would simply go out and use the practices to compete more efficiently with their benefit that way but by advertising it to the world they are essentially demonstrating that they have no inclination or no indication right or that this information is something they shouldn't have to be hiding it somehow in order to protect themselves from this kind of litigation so the other thing that needs to be addressed in terms of knowledge here is the way the allegations are laid out in the complaint terrible usa is in fact a downtown green user of information that was stolen first bab with held liable the downstream user was not can i just follow up on something on your seven witnesses this is paragraphs eighty six to ninety two i trust those those are the people listed when i asked you some questions that to which you responded about the seven witnesses  i took your answer to be suggesting that these were people that the plaintiffs had access to has access to can get information from and could therefore have filled an amended complaint or a second amended complaint with many many details based on those discussions with the seven witnesses so my question is are these seven people people that  people are alleged to be terminated employees and while they don't come out and say in their brief which is somewhat true to form they don't come out and say that they do or do not have access to these individuals but i would from those facts and circumstances that they do briefly on the question of the statute of limitations the district court really expressed a certain amount of disbelief and frustration that a massive theft of traffic trade secrets like these occurring over a space of twenty to thirty years could go undiscovered until actually after this will get in this file they claim they didn't learn about it until after in that respect somehow a senior or trusted employee this is alleged and it's being used against a b b daily in competition in this very close market and that somehow a b b didn't know about or discovered the report hans from going head of having set up turbo med in the netherlands to compete specifically with companies including my client and having sold turbo med and founded turbo usa of which he is the one hundred percent owner through another company and which his son is the president of and is engaging in exactly the same business operations is not following exactly the same course of conduct that you followed in the netherlands he is out of the business in holland he is in the business in florida and it is more than plausible for us to assert that he is engaging and his company now turbo usa and his son will own franken are engaging in the exact same misuse of our information and it's inconceivable for turbo usa and won't drop in to suggest that they are the innocent downstream recipients of this information this is not an arm's length transaction these are not unrelated companies these companies and their operations are about as related and interlinked as it comes but the one case that they cite to suggest that that chain is somehow broken because these are formally separate parties liberty insurance was a case for injunction not a pleadings case that's the one case that they direct you to it was a case for pulling in every injunction where there was record evidence from the parties in that case saying no i didn't take the trade secrets from the company that i left it's very simple here it is a classic illustration of a former employee using knowledge gained both before and after he he left his company's employ in order to operate an ongoing business and suggestion that that ongoing business is is has no knowledge of this information he's not only implausible our allegation that they do plainly needs the plausibility standard set out in the fall and we request respectfully request was can i just ask you that question about the seven witnesses can you have access to them we have spoken with one of them mr dreier and the other information that we have is information of him so the short answer accused of theirs they're saying that these were one duly generalized allegations and so the people who really matter if they want to if they if they think that they're not on notice despite the paragraphs upon paragraphs of our allegations as to what our claims are they have far better access to these people than we do i believe these are people that hans frank and actually worked with at target the so you know to the suggestion from my brother that we've sort of held back information we've gone the other direction your arms we have tried to you know tell of a sequence of events that leads inexorably to the conclusion that they are improperly trading o information and they knowingly acquired it and their best excuse is well this was an atypical business transaction where we acquired information on the garage that's their excuse to explain the genesis in the provenance of the information that they've built their business around  and the pleadings stage at the pleading stage what we've alleged is plainly sufficient and we should be permitted the opportunity to take discovery of our allegations thank you thank you thank both council the cases