Trade Secrets

Inventus Power v. Shenzhen Ace: The DTSA Follows Trade Secrets to China

A federal court kept a trade-secret suit against a Chinese competitor in Illinois, holding China an inadequate forum and wielding the DTSA's extraterritorial reach and a worldwide TRO.

October 8, 2025
Rows of lithium battery cells on an automated manufacturing line
Inventus Power shows how Section 1837 and a worldwide TRO let a U.S. court reach a Chinese defendant that argued the dispute belonged in China. Shutterstock
Educational content, not legal advice. This article explains general legal concepts. It does not create an attorney–client relationship. For your specific situation, consult a licensed attorney.

The decision is Inventus Power, Inc. v. Shenzhen Ace Battery Co., No. 1:20-cv-03375, issued by Judge Robert M. Dow, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on May 18, 2021. The opinion denied the Chinese defendant’s motion to dismiss on forum non conveniens grounds, keeping in an American courtroom a Defend Trade Secrets Act case whose factual center of gravity lay in China. The ruling is a working illustration of how the DTSA reaches across borders—not through a sweeping pronouncement on extraterritoriality, but through the statute’s “act in furtherance” hook in 18 U.S.C. § 1837, a clear-eyed forum analysis, and a temporary restraining order that operated worldwide and with which the defendant complied.

At a glance

  • Case: Inventus Power, Inc. v. Shenzhen Ace Battery Co., Ltd., No. 1:20-cv-03375
  • Court: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
  • Judge: Robert M. Dow, Jr.
  • Decided: May 18, 2021 (order denying motion to dismiss for forum non conveniens)
  • Claims: Defend Trade Secrets Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1836(b); Illinois Trade Secrets Act
  • Plaintiffs: Inventus Power, Inc. and its affiliated manufacturing operation
  • Defendant: Shenzhen Ace Battery Co., Ltd. (“ACE”), a Chinese competitor
  • Holding: China was neither an available nor an adequate alternative forum, and the case would remain in Illinois; the court had earlier issued a worldwide TRO with which ACE confirmed compliance
  • Significance: A practical model for keeping cross-border DTSA litigation in U.S. courts and for using the statute’s extraterritorial reach against a foreign defendant

The statutory hook: Section 1837

The DTSA’s federal civil cause of action does not stop at the water’s edge. Section 1837 of Title 18 supplies the reach: the Act’s provisions “apply to conduct occurring outside the United States” if either the offender is a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, or organization, or “an act in furtherance of the offense was committed in the United States.” 18 U.S.C. § 1837. That second clause is the workhorse in cross-border misappropriation cases. It means that even where a foreign competitor does most of its damage abroad, a single qualifying domestic act can pull the entire scheme within the statute’s grasp.

Inventus, a U.S.-based maker of advanced battery systems, alleged that ACE engineered a recruitment campaign to lure away high-ranking Inventus employees who held deep access to the company’s proprietary battery technology, and that those departing employees downloaded more than 100,000 confidential technical documents on their way out the door. Those allegations—domestic employees of a domestic company taking domestic-developed trade secrets before decamping to a foreign rival—supply exactly the kind of U.S.-based “act in furtherance” that Section 1837 contemplates. With that hook satisfied, the misappropriation that continued in China did not place the conduct beyond the DTSA’s reach; it placed it within it.

The real battle: forum non conveniens

ACE’s principal defense was procedural geography. It moved to dismiss on forum non conveniens grounds, arguing that the dispute—Chinese defendant, Chinese employees, conduct largely in China—belonged in a Chinese court. Forum non conveniens permits a U.S. court to decline jurisdiction in favor of a foreign forum, but only when the alternative forum is both available and adequate. Judge Dow concluded China was neither.

On availability, the court found China “presently unavailable.” The COVID-19 pandemic and the travel restrictions then in force would prevent U.S.-based witnesses from attending proceedings in China, and the court doubted whether a local court in Shenzhen would even accept jurisdiction over a case brought by a U.S. plaintiff that had suffered its injury in the United States. A forum that the plaintiff’s witnesses cannot reach, and that may decline the case, is not a meaningful alternative.

On adequacy, the court’s reasoning cut to the heart of why cross-border trade-secret plaintiffs prize U.S. courts. Relying on an expert declaration, the court found that the relevant Chinese provincial courts had never issued a preservation order functionally similar to the injunctive relief Inventus needed. More pointedly, the court doubted that a Chinese court could monitor extraterritorial activity or compel ACE’s compliance with an injunction reaching beyond China’s own borders. That doubt stood in sharp contrast to what the U.S. court had already accomplished: it had entered a TRO that enjoined ACE throughout the world, and ACE had confirmed its compliance with that worldwide order. A forum that cannot grant the global relief the case requires is, for that case, inadequate.

Why the worldwide TRO matters

The worldwide TRO is the analytical fulcrum of the opinion, and it captures the strategic logic of bringing a foreign-facing trade-secret case under the DTSA in a U.S. court. Trade secrets, once taken, can be used anywhere; relief confined to a single country is leaky relief. A U.S. court exercising personal jurisdiction over a foreign defendant can issue an injunction that, in personam, binds that defendant’s conduct everywhere—and can enforce it through the court’s contempt power against a party that has appeared. ACE’s own compliance with the worldwide TRO was, in the court’s view, affirmative evidence that the U.S. forum could deliver effective global relief while the proposed Chinese alternative could not.

It bears emphasis that the May 18, 2021 opinion is a forum decision, not a merits adjudication of misappropriation, and the court did not rest its analysis on an express ruling about the presumption against extraterritoriality. Its significance lies in the interaction of three elements: Section 1837’s domestic “act in furtherance” hook, which makes the DTSA available against a foreign defendant; the forum non conveniens analysis, which keeps the case in the United States; and the worldwide TRO, which makes the U.S. forum genuinely effective against conduct abroad. Together they show how a plaintiff facing offshore misappropriation can litigate at home and obtain relief that travels.

Open questions

The opinion resolves the forum question for this case but rests partly on circumstances that may not generalize. The “unavailability” finding leaned on pandemic-era travel restrictions, leaving open how the analysis comes out once witnesses can again travel and the only barrier is the ordinary inconvenience of foreign litigation. The adequacy finding turned on a specific evidentiary showing about Chinese provincial courts’ injunctive practice; a different record, or developments in Chinese trade-secret enforcement, could shift that calculus. The decision also does not test the outer limits of Section 1837—how slender a domestic “act in furtherance” may be and still anchor the statute, or how courts should treat a scheme in which the only U.S. nexus is incidental. And because the court enforced a worldwide TRO against a defendant that appeared and complied, it did not have to confront the harder enforcement problem of a foreign defendant that simply ignores a U.S. injunction and keeps assets beyond reach.

Implications

  • One domestic act can open the door. Under Section 1837, a single qualifying “act in furtherance” committed in the United States—such as employees downloading proprietary files before leaving—can bring an otherwise foreign misappropriation scheme within the DTSA.
  • Forum non conveniens is the foreign defendant’s first move. Expect a Chinese or other foreign defendant to argue the case belongs at home; defeating that motion turns on showing the foreign forum is unavailable or inadequate.
  • Document the inadequacy of the foreign forum. Inventus prevailed in part on expert evidence that the proposed Chinese courts had never issued comparable injunctive relief; building that record is decisive.
  • Worldwide injunctive relief is the prize. A U.S. court with personal jurisdiction can enjoin a foreign defendant’s conduct globally and enforce it through contempt—relief a foreign court may be unable to match.
  • Move fast for emergency relief. Securing an early worldwide TRO not only protects the secrets but also becomes evidence that the U.S. forum is the effective one, strengthening the case against dismissal.

Frequently asked questions

How does the DTSA apply to a Chinese defendant at all? Through 18 U.S.C. § 1837, which extends the Act to conduct outside the United States when the offender is a U.S. person or organization, or when an act in furtherance of the offense occurred in the United States. In Inventus, the alleged domestic downloading of confidential documents by departing employees supplied that domestic act.

Did the court rule that the defendant misappropriated trade secrets? No. The May 18, 2021 decision denied dismissal on forum non conveniens grounds—it kept the case in Illinois. It is a forum ruling, not a final merits determination on misappropriation.

Why was China found to be an inadequate forum? The court found China presently unavailable because pandemic travel restrictions would keep U.S. witnesses away and a Shenzhen court might not take the case, and inadequate because the relevant Chinese courts had not issued comparable injunctive relief and might not be able to enforce an injunction reaching conduct outside China—unlike the U.S. court’s worldwide TRO, with which the defendant had complied.

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