## Facts

- Yellowfin manufactured high-end center-console fishing boats and claimed trade dress rights in a distinctive “swept” sheer line on its boats.
- Kevin Barker worked for Yellowfin as vice president of sales, had access to password-protected customer and internal business information, and left to form Barker Boatworks, a competing boat company.
- Barker never signed Yellowfin’s proposed confidentiality agreement.
- On his last day at Yellowfin, Barker downloaded hundreds of files, including customer purchasing histories and specifications, as well as design-related materials; he asserted the downloads were to verify commissions.
- After leaving, Barker Boatworks hired a naval architect to design a competing boat; Yellowfin alleged the resulting boat closely replicated Yellowfin’s claimed sheer-line trade dress.
- Yellowfin asserted trade secret protection under Florida law for compiled customer and source information, much of which was publicly available but allegedly valuable due to organization and detail.
- Yellowfin did not consistently protect the alleged trade secrets: the information was not marked confidential, was permitted on Barker’s personal devices, and Yellowfin did not require return, deletion, or other offboarding security steps when Barker resigned.

## Issues

1. Whether Yellowfin presented sufficient evidence of a likelihood of consumer confusion to support Lanham Act § 43(a) trade dress infringement and related unfair competition/false designation claims based on the alleged “swept sheer line.”
2. Whether Yellowfin’s customer and source compilations qualified as trade secrets under Florida’s Uniform Trade Secrets Act (FUTSA) and, if so, whether Barker misappropriated them through unauthorized acquisition, use, or disclosure.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Barker on all claims.
- Yellowfin failed, as a matter of law, to establish a likelihood of confusion required for trade dress infringement and related claims.
- Yellowfin failed to show FUTSA misappropriation; even assuming trade secret status, the record did not support that Barker used or disclosed the alleged trade secrets.

## Legal Principles

- Lanham Act trade dress infringement and related unfair competition theories require proof of a likelihood of consumer confusion, evaluated under a multi-factor test and based on the product’s overall commercial impression rather than isolated features.
- Where products are expensive and purchased by sophisticated buyers exercising substantial care, minor design similarities are less likely to support an inference of likely confusion.
- Under FUTSA, a protectable trade secret must derive independent economic value from not being generally known and must be subject to reasonable efforts to maintain secrecy; compilations of public information may qualify only if protected and valuable due to their organization and use.
- FUTSA misappropriation requires evidence of unauthorized acquisition, disclosure, or use; mere possession or retention of information, without evidence tying it to competitive use or disclosure, is insufficient.

## Conclusion

The court upheld summary judgment because Yellowfin’s design-based trade dress theory lacked evidence that buyers were likely to confuse the two makers’ boats, and its FUTSA claim failed due to weak secrecy practices and the absence of proof that Barker used or disclosed the alleged customer or source information as trade secrets.


Yellowfin Yachts, Inc. v. Barker Boatworks, LLC, 898 F.3d 1279 (11th Cir. 2018)