Todd & Weld Secures Trade Secrets Litigation Victory for Northeastern Professor and Battery Technology Company
Todd & Weld LLP attorneys Benjamin Wish and Devon Friedfertig secured a significant victory in Suffolk Superior Court on behalf of Hongli Zhu and her company, Solid Ionics, in a high-profile trade secrets dispute involving advanced solid-state battery technology.
The court denied a motion to dismiss filed by the defendants, allowing the plaintiffs’ claims for trade secret misappropriation and conspiracy under the Massachusetts Uniform Trade Secrets Act to proceed.
Professor Zhu, a faculty member at Northeastern University, alleged that proprietary research and confidential technical information related to all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs) developed in her laboratory were improperly taken and used by another Northeastern professor and a former Ph.D. student who had worked in her lab.
In a detailed decision, the court found that the plaintiffs plausibly alleged ownership of the trade secrets at issue under Northeastern’s Faculty Handbook and adequately identified the confidential information with sufficient specificity to proceed with litigation.
“The subject matter here, in whole or in part, fits clearly into the definition of a ‘trade secret,’” the court wrote in rejecting the defendants’ standing challenge.
Attorney Wish emphasized the significance of the ruling in the context of university research and intellectual property disputes.
“Northeastern’s trade secret policy affords professors a greater entitlement to ownership than Northeastern’s patent policy, upon which the defendants sought to rely,” said Attorney Wish.
The plaintiffs alleged that the misappropriated information included proprietary manufacturing methods, sealing techniques, pressure control parameters, and interface stabilization processes relating to ASSB technology—confidential discoveries that took years to develop and were not publicly available.
The court also concluded that the plaintiffs sufficiently identified the alleged trade secrets, noting that they provided a detailed 26-page disclosure describing the confidential information and how it differed from publicly available technology.
The decision represents an important early-stage victory in a closely watched dispute involving academic research, intellectual property ownership, and emerging battery technologies.
To read the full Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly article, click here.