| 作者：詹姆斯·普利 (James Pooley)| 译者：陈哲远 北京天驰君泰律师事务所上海分所律师，王召峰 北京理工大学法学院法律硕士研究生
"在普通法诉讼中，当争议价值超过 20 美元时，当事人有申请陪审团审判的权利......"
——美国宪法第七修正案
“In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved . . . .”
——7th Amendment to U.S. Constitution
你总会记得自己第一次参加陪审团审判时的情景。我的第一次发生在将近 50 年前，我至今仍然清楚地记得和合伙人坐在一起研究法官将要给出的“指示”。他向我解释说，法官将告诉陪审团相关法规（这是一桩合同纠纷案件），陪审团则对事实问题进行裁决。然而结果是我们败诉了，案子就此告一段落。尽管有上诉的可能，但要推翻陪审团的裁决是非常困难的。
You always remember your first jury trial. Mine happened almost 50 years ago, and I still vividly recall sitting with the partner to work on the “instructions” that the judge would be giving. He explained to me that the jury would be told what the statutes said (this was a contract case), and they would be responsible for deciding the facts that determined their verdict. As it turned out, we didn’t win, and that was the end of it. Although an appeal was possible, overturning a jury verdict is very hard to do.
这是理所应当的。很久以前—早在我们创造“crowdsourcing/大众外包[1]””一词之前—对陪审团制度的尊重，加上对效率合乎逻辑的合理关注，就已经形成了“遵从陪审团智慧”的规则。如果初审法官犯了可能影响审判结果的严重错误，可以要求重审。然而，只有在极少数情况下，才允许法官推翻陪审团的裁决，转而改判另一方胜诉。这要求仔细翻阅记录，审查所有证物和证词，得出 "完全缺乏证据支持裁决 "的结论。在此过程中，法官不能基于自己对证据可信度的判断，而必须以最有利于陪审团裁决的方式来解读所有证据。只有在他们这样做后，仍然确信事实是如此“压倒性”地指向了与陪审团裁决相反的方向，以至于任何有理性的人都不可能得出与陪审团相同的结论时，初审法官（或上诉法院）才可以推翻陪审团的裁决结果。
And that’s as it should be. Respect for the jury as an institution, coupled with a logical focus on efficiency, long ago – long before we coined the term “crowdsourcing” – led to rules that defer to the wisdom of the jury. If the trial judge made a serious error that likely affected the outcome, a new trial can be ordered. But only rarely do we allow judges to reverse what the jury did and give judgment to the other side. That would require scouring the record, going through all the exhibits and all the testimony, to conclude that there was “a complete absence of evidence supporting the verdict.” Judges are not allowed to substitute their assessment of credibility when they do this, but have to interpret all the evidence in a way that is most favorable to the jury’s decision. Only if they do that, and are still convinced that the facts are so “overwhelming” that no reasonable person could have come out as the jury did, can the trial judge (or an appeals court) reverse the result.
1 第二巡回法院在 Syntel 诉 Trizetto 案中的判决
The Second Circuit in Syntel v. Trizetto
这就是为什么我在看到 Syntel 诉 Trizetto 案的最新判决时感到惊讶。这是一起涉及商业秘密纠纷的案件，该案在 2020 年 10 月纽约联邦法院的陪审团审判之后被上诉至联邦第二巡回上诉法院。该案中，软件开发商 Syntel 根据一项旨在改进医疗保健行业软件工具的合同起诉 Trizetto。随后，Trizetto 提起反诉，指控 Syntel 滥用其接触到的Trizetto的商业秘密，构成不正当竞争 。
That’s why I was surprised to see the recent opinion in Syntel v. Trizetto, a trade secret case that made its way to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals following a jury trial in New York federal court in October 2020. Syntel, a software developer, had sued Trizetto under a contract for improving software tools used in the healthcare industry. Trizetto filed a counterclaim accusing Syntel of misusing its access to Trizetto secrets to go into competition with it.
Trizetto 的诉请依据是《保护商业秘密法》（DTSA），该法自 2016 年起赋予了商业秘密所有者在联邦法院提起诉讼的权利。在此之前，有关商业秘密侵权的诉讼主要在州法院依据“所谓的”《统一商业秘密法》（UTSA）进行。我之所以说“所谓的”，是因为自《统一商业秘密法》作为范本被提出以来的许多年里，各州对其文本进行了大量修改，以至于国会决定需要制定一部联邦法律来确保法律的一致性。然而， DTSA 和 UTSA 有一个方面是完全吻合的：损害赔偿的计算方式。
Trizetto based its claim on the Defend Trade Secrets Act （DTSA）, which since 2016 has allowed trade secret owners to sue in federal court. Before that time, claims for misappropriation mainly happened in state courts under the so-called Uniform Trade Secrets Act （UTSA）. I say “so-called” because over the years since the UTSA was proposed as a model, individual states have tinkered with the language so much that Congress decided a federal law was needed to provide consistency. But one aspect of the DTSA and UTSA match perfectly: how damages are calculated.
Disgorgement of a Defendant’s Avoided Costs
Because the twin policies behind trade secret law, according to the 美国联邦最高法院指出，商业秘密法背后的双重政策目的在于“维护商业道德标准和鼓励发明创造”，因此损害赔偿金的裁定往往较为慷慨，以确保被侵权人得到充分赔偿，并防止侵权人从侵权行为中获益。具体来说，原告有权根据其“实际损失”以及被告“不当得利”的金额要求损害赔偿，只要不重复计算即可。由于种种原因，实际损失的证明通常比较困难，因此原告更倾向于依赖要求“返还”被告的非法获利来进行索赔。而这类获利通常是以被告“避免的成本”来计算，即被告因无需通过自行研发和实验以独立发现涉案秘密所节省的成本。
U.S. Supreme Court, are the “maintenance of standards of commercial ethics and the encouragement of invention,” damage awards tend to be generous to ensure that the victim is fully compensated and that the perpetrator does not retain any benefit from the misappropriation. Specifically, a plaintiff is entitled to recover damages for its “actual loss” and an amount representing the defendant’s “unjust enrichment,” so long as there’s no double counting. For a lot of reasons, it’s often difficult to show actual loss, and so plaintiffs tend to rely more on “disgorgement” of the defendant’s benefit. And usually that benefit is calculated as the defendant’s “avoided costs” from not having to do its own research and experimentation to discover the secret on its own.
事实上，Trizetto掌握了实际损失的证据，这些损失体现在Syntel 成功抢夺的部分业务上， 总计达850 万美元。然而，根据 Trizetto 当初开发这些秘密信息的成本计算，Syntel 所避免的成本高达近 2.85 亿美元。这就是提交给陪审团的数字，陪审团最终裁定 Trizetto 胜诉，并且由于 认定Syntel 的侵权行为属于“蓄意且恶意的”，因此还判定其承担惩罚性损害赔偿。庭审结束后，Syntel 对这一裁决提出了质疑，但初审法官根据“尊重陪审团裁决”的传统标准，驳回了 Syntel 的重审动议。（陪审团也对著作权侵权行为做出了损害赔偿裁决，但这一点并未受到质疑）。
Trizetto in fact had evidence of actual loss, in the form of some business that Syntel was able to grab, amounting to $8.5 million. But the calculation of Syntel’s avoided costs, based on what it had cost Trizetto to develop the secret information in the first place, was almost $285 million. That was the number submitted to the jury, and it ruled for Trizetto and also awarded punitive damages because it found that Syntel’s misappropriation was “willful and malicious.” After the trial, Syntel challenged the verdict, but the trial judge, applying the traditional standard favoring jury verdicts, denied Syntel’s motion. (The jury had also awarded damages for copyright infringement, but that was not challenged).
Switching the Standard of Review
然而，在Syntel向联邦第二巡回法院上诉后，原判决被撤销。在采用尊重裁决的审查标准后，法院首先确认 Trizetto 已经证明了合法商业秘密的存在，并且根据合同，Syntel 无权在与 Trizetto 的竞争中使用这些信息。尽管如此，虽然法院承认“可收回的损害赔偿金额是一个事实问题”，但它还是将分析转向了对“法律问题”的“重新审查”（即以全新视角审查），以判断“在这个具体案件中”准许根据 DTSA 要求被告返还避免的成本是否适当。
However, on appeal to the Second Circuit, the judgment was vacated. Applying the deferential standard of review, the court began by confirming that Trizetto had proven the existence of legitimate trade secrets, and that Syntel had no right under the contract to use that information in competition with Trizetto. But although it acknowledged that the “amount of recoverable damages is a question of fact,” it switched its analysis to “de novo” (i.e., fresh eyes) review on the “legal question” of whether it was proper “in this specific case” to allow recovery of avoided costs under the DTSA.
你可能会认为这是一个非常直接明了的问题。毕竟，该法规是以连词的形式并列表达的：原告可以要求损害赔偿“以及”要求在损害赔偿计算中未包含的任何不当得利金额。事实上，至少有另外两家巡回法院在适用与UTSA相同的措辞时，也是这样判决的：Epic Systems v. Tata Consultancy 案（第七巡回法院）和 PPG Industries v. Jiangsu 案（第三巡回法院）。然而，第二巡回审判庭最终表示，他们有不同的看法。
You would be excused for thinking that this was a pretty straightforward question. After all, the statute is expressed in the conjunctive: the plaintiff can recover its loss “and” any amount of unjust enrichment that is not already accounted for in the loss calculation. Indeed, at least two other circuit courts, applying identical language from the UTSA, had ruled that way: Epic Systems v. Tata Consultancy (Seventh Circuit) and PPG Industries v. Jiangsu (Third Circuit). Ultimately, the Second Circuit panel said it disagreed with those cases.
相反，第二巡回法院采用了一个错误的前提：即《保护商业秘密法》中关于不当得利的条款是为了通过向“损害未能通过利润损失得到充分补偿”的被侵权人提供赔偿，从而使“商业秘密持有人获得全面补偿”。然而，该法条文本身或其立法历史中没有任何内容支持这一假设；相反，其目的仅仅是为了确保侵权人无法从其不法行为中获利，这是明确的。这种对立法目的的曲解导致进一步偏离法律本身，转而考虑《不正当竞争法重述（第三版）》。这是美国法学会的出版物，旨在描述包括商业秘密在内的各种普通法领域。它被律师们称为“次要参考”，与作为主要参考的法规本身形成鲜明对比。
Instead, the court adopted a false premise: that the DTSA provision on unjust enrichment is designed to provide compensation to victims “whose injuries are not adequately addressed by lost profits” by making “trade secret holders whole.” There is nothing in the text of the statute or in the history of its enactment that supports that assumption; instead, the obvious goal is simply to make sure that the thief doesn’t get to hold on to any benefit from the wrongful act. This twist of the statutory purpose provided the setup for wandering even further from the statute, to consider the Restatement （Third） of Unfair Competition, a publication of the American Law Institute which purports to describe the common law on a variety of subjects, including trade secrets. It is what lawyers call a “secondary reference,” in contrast to the statute itself, which is primary.
在探讨关于商业秘密损害赔偿的普通法解释时，法院将目光转向了《不正当竞争法重述》第 45条第2款。该条款建议，对于赔偿额的认定，除了采取基本方法，即从原告损失或被告获利中取较大者之外，法官还应进行“案件各要素的综合比较评估”，这包括评估原告对其损害赔偿案件成立的“确定性程度”，以及“其他补救措施对原告的相对充分性”。在此，我们需要强调一下：这些建议不是源自UTSA或DTSA的内容，而是反映了一群主要由学者和从业者自发组成的团体对于“普通法”（即非成文法）现状的共识。然而，第二巡回法院试图在脚注中将这些普通法原则与DTSA联系起来，仅指出“这些普通法原则与 DTSA 的语言和结构一致”。当然，“一致”只是表示两者之间没有明显的冲突，并不意味着这些普通法原则可以从成文法的措辞中推导出来；那是不可能的。
Turning to the Restatement for an understanding of the common law of trade secret damages, the court zeroed in on § 45(2), which suggests that, in addition to the basic approach of awarding the greater of plaintiff’s loss or defendant’s gain, a judge should engage in a “comparative appraisal of all the factors of the case,” including the “degree of certainty” with which the plaintiff has established its damages case, and “the relative adequacy to the plaintiff of other remedies.” We should pause here to emphasize that none of this is part of the UTSA or DTSA, but represents the consensus view of a largely self-selected group of scholars and practitioners about the state of the “common” (i.e., non-statutory) law. But the Second Circuit tried to link it together in passing with a footnote saying only that “these common law principles are consistent with the language and the structure of the DTSA.” Of course, “consistent with” means just that they are not obviously conflicting, not that the common law principles can be inferred from the language of the statute; they can’t be.
Requiring a ‘Comparative Appraisal’ of Remedies
在完全不遵从裁决的情况下，上诉法院自我授权进行了重新审查，并采纳了《不正当竞争法重述》所提出的“比较评估”建议。上诉法院重点审视了“其他补救措施对 Trizetto的充分性”，特别是初审法官下达的永久禁令，该禁令明令禁止 Syntel 使用或披露相关商业秘密。这些补救措施“是减少商业秘密持有人在商业损失以外所受伤害的强效补药”。事实上，法院指出，如果仅关注避免的成本，而不进行全面的 “比较评估”（尽管其定义尚不明确），就很可能做出“惩罚性大于补偿性的裁决”。因此，让我们再次稍作观察，便会发现法院此时已经将两种不同的法定损害赔偿计算方法混为一谈，将两者都与原告所受损害挂钩；这似乎揭示了法院真正的潜在担忧：2.45 亿美元的损害赔偿似乎过于高昂（因此具有“惩罚性”），对于已经被禁止继续使用商业秘密的侵权方过于严苛，而对于实际损失并不严重的原告则显得尤为偏袒。（实际上，法院认为Trizetto 的软件“现今的价值甚至比侵权发生时还要高”）。
Having given itself permission to review the question with zero deference to the verdict, the appellate court engaged in what it viewed as the “comparative appraisal” suggested by the Restatement. It focused its attention on the “adequacy to [Trizetto] of other remedies” and in particular the permanent injunction that the trial judge had entered, prohibiting Syntel from using or disclosing the trade secrets. Such remedies “work as a powerful tonic to reduce the harm a trade secret holder suffers beyond its lost business.” Indeed, if you focused only on avoided costs without the （undefined） “comparative appraisal,” the court said, you risk making “awards that are more punitive than compensatory.” So, let’s pause again briefly to observe that the court has by now conflated two separate statutory damage calculations by linking both of them to harm to the plaintiff; and it seems to have revealed its real underlying concern: that a $245 million damage award seems very excessive (and therefore “punitive”) against someone who’s already been enjoined from further use and in favor of someone who hasn’t actually lost much. (Indeed, the court offered, Trizetto’s software “is worth even more today than it was when the misappropriation occurred.”)
你们现在可能已经察觉到了，第二巡回法院的这一逻辑游戏让我深感失望。更令我难以接受的是，他们试图两面讨好：一方面做出广泛的裁决，主张避免成本的不当得利损害赔偿必须与原告所能证明的损失相挂钩，另一方面又反复（据我统计，共有七次）暗示其裁决仅限于本案的“特定事实”。采用如此错综复杂的推理来攻击其认为和禁令并行时显得过高的赔偿裁决，似乎不仅是对诉讼当事人的伤害，也对我们这些关心这一法律领域的人造成了困扰。
As you may be able to tell by now, this logical legerdemain by the Second Circuit has me pretty disappointed. Even more so because they try to have it both ways, by issuing a broad ruling that avoided cost unjust enrichment damages must somehow be tethered to proof of loss to the plaintiff, and by repeating (seven times by my count) the suggestion that its holding is limited to “the particular facts” of this case. It seems a disservice not only to the litigants, but also to the rest of us who care about this area of the law, to engage in such labyrinthian reasoning to attack an award that one believes is excessive in light of the injunction.
What Can Be Done to Resolve the Conflict?
如果我们认为商业秘密法关于避免成本损害赔偿的规定过于宽泛，那么我们应当诉诸国会，以使该法更好地服务于其旨在保护的行业，而不是通过“重述普通法”的方式来粉饰现行法规。如果要突出重点，我们应该借此契机明确并强化一个观念：被侵权人的伤害与被告的获利是不同的，“避免成本”不仅仅关乎金钱，更关乎免于承担自主研发可能导致彻底失败的风险。对于侵权人来说，被侵犯商业秘密的“价值”至少体现在他们知道这一秘密是行之有效的。
If we think trade secret law on avoided cost damages is too loose as it is written, then we should go back to Congress to make it work better for the industries it is designed to serve, rather than conjure a gloss on the existing statute using a “restatement of the common law.” If we’re going to sharpen the point, we should take the opportunity to clarify and reinforce that harm to the victim is different than benefit to the defendant, and that “avoided cost” is not just about money, but about not having to take the risk that your own development effort will fail entirely. The “value” of a stolen trade secret to the misappropriator is at least in the knowledge that it works.
除了诉诸国会之外，我们或许还能通过更合理地解释现行法律，为陪审团提供更好的指导。精心撰写能够将法律问题和事实问题清晰分离的说明，将有助于我们更好地准备审判，并提高判决结果的可预测性。正如我很久以前所明白的一个道理：只要你为陪审团提供准确的信息，他们就会做出公正的裁决。As an alternative to returning to Congress, perhaps there are ways to honestly interpret the existing law to help provide better guidance to juries. Sitting down to write instructions that cleanly separate issues of law and fact will help us prepare our trials and improve predictability of outcomes. As I learned a long time ago, juries will do the right thing if you give them the right information.
[1]译者注：“Crowdsourcing”是由Jeff Howe 和 Mark Robinson在2006年首度造出来的词，意思是向不特定的大众发包相应任务，不特定的大众提供各自的服务，贡献自己的观点和内容。
*本文由北京天驰君泰律师事务所国际业务专业委员会高级合伙人朱尉贤律师、合伙人寇海侠律师审校。
