United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit

FILED August 9, 2022 No. 22-50034 Lyle W. Cayce Clerk

CAE Integrated, L.L.C.; Capital Asset Exchange and Trading, L.L.C.,

Plaintiffs—Appellants,

versus

Moov Technologies, Incorporated; Nicholas Meissner,

Defendants—Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas USDC No. 1:21-CV-00377

Before Higginbotham, Dennis, and Graves, Circuit Judges. Per Curiam: CAE sued its former employee Nicholas Meissner and his current employer, Moov, for misappropriation of trade secrets and then moved for a preliminary injunction. The district court denied the preliminary injunction and CAE appealed. As CAE fails to establish a likelihood of success on the merits of its claims, we affirm the denial of the preliminary injunction. Case: 22-50034 Document: 00516425929 Page: 2 Date Filed: 08/09/2022

No. 22-50034

I. For forty years, CAE Integrated L.L.C. and Capital Asset Exchange and Trading, L.L.C. (collectively CAE) have sold and traded semiconductor equipment. Moov Technologies Inc. (Moov) is a smaller company in the used semiconductor market, founded in 2017. Meissner worked at CAE as a trader, developing relationships with buyers and sellers of semiconductor equipment. His employment contract included a non-disclosure agreement protecting CAE’s “propriety information” including its “customers and suppliers and any other nonpublic information that has commercial value.” The contract also included a one-year prohibition on Meissner soliciting CAE’s actual or potential customers with whom he was in contact during the year preceding any termination. Through 2016, Meissner used his personal MacBook for work and used Google Drive to transfer and store large files, such as photographs of equipment and purchase agreements. The Google Drive account was linked to Meissner’s personal Google account. Files saved on his MacBook were placed in a folder that synced to his Google Drive. In 2016, CAE provided all employees with computers. Meissner gave his MacBook to CAE to wipe it of CAE files. At that time, CAE took a snapshot of the computer, as it was then configured, which was stored on the MacBook’s secondary drive. CAE returned the MacBook to Meissner, and he continued to use it as a personal computer until it crashed later that year, when he brought the MacBook to CAE for repair. CAE never again returned the MacBook to Meissner and he has had no access to the MacBook since 2016. CAE fired Meissner on May 1, 2018. Meissner signed a separation agreement, agreeing to be bound by the 2014 non-compete clause for one year. He warranted that he had returned all company property, including documents stored in “his personal email or cloud storage accounts, or

2 Case: 22-50034 Document: 00516425929 Page: 3 Date Filed: 08/09/2022

No. 22-50034

elsewhere.” The agreement included a general release of CAE’s claims, known or unknown, against Mei