James Pooley, a trade secrets expert and attorney who has represented companies including Adobe, GE, and Qualcomm, said the high-profile (and high dollar value) nature of the Apple case is part of the reason issues like talent poaching are being explored so thoroughly.

“Cases like this have many dimensions,” Pooley said. “You get treated to a number of different issues that wouldn’t necessarily come up in cases where people couldn’t afford to turn over every rock and assert every possible argument.”

For Pooley, the Apple case illustrates an age-old Silicon Valley adage.

“There’s the story of the small-time innovator, Masimo, versus Apple, which has an innovation factory,” Pooley said. And in that David and Goliath scenario, the question, he said, becomes, “Who is the innovator?”