By Robert Duda Jr. and Terry Smith ( July 14, 2017, 11:50 AM EDT) -- Employers should take note of a recent decision by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago in which the court applied the inevitable disclosure doctrine to an employer's misappropriation of trade secrets claim against a competitor under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016. In Molon Motor & Coil Corp. v. Nidec Motor Corp., No. 16-cv-03545, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71700 (N.D. Ill. May 11, 2017) (Chang, J), the district court denied the competitor's Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, finding that the complaint alleged a plausible claim that the competitor misappropriated, i.e., acquired or used, the trade secrets through its hiring of the plaintiff's former employee even though there were no direct or specific facts alleged in the complaint of such acquisition or use....