By Blake Brittain
WASHINGTON, May 28 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Thursday overturned a $59 million verdict that medical device maker Insulet won against Korean rival EOFlow for allegedly stealing trade secrets related to its insulin-pump technology.
The Washington-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the verdict after finding that Insulet had waited too long to bring its lawsuit.
A federal jury in Massachusetts had determined in 2024 that EOFlow owed $452 million in damages for misappropriating Insulet trade secrets to create a competitor to Insulet’s Omnipod, a wearable insulin pump for diabetes patients. A Massachusetts judge reduced the award to $59.4 million last year.
Insulet earned $781.8 million from sales of the Omnipod, its flagship product, in 2025, according to a company report.
Spokespeople for Insulet did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Thursday ruling. EOFlow attorney Elizabeth Prelogar called the decision “a sweeping victory for our client — and for innovation.”
Acton, Massachusetts-based Insulet sued EOFlow in 2023. Its lawsuit said EOFlow hired away Insulet employees in 2017 and 2018 to develop its EOPatch, an insulin device similar to the Omnipod.
According to the lawsuit, after failing for six years to design its own patch pump, EOFlow began selling an EOPatch that was “strikingly similar” to the Omnipod less than two years after using former Insulet employees’ confidential information.
The Federal Circuit said the verdict could not stand based on the three-year statute of limitations for federal trade-secret claims. The court said Insulet should have known of the alleged theft in 2019, four years before it sued EOFlow.
(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by Alexia Garamflavi and Bill Berkrot)
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