> You really don't want the law to be "Well you didn't lose a physical thing, so why should it be illegal?"

There are people who feel this way, so it's possible that the parent comment does actually want it to be this. You're 100% correct that this doesn't describe the law right now though, which is what actually matters for this lawsuit.

It isn't ever quite that simple. It also depends whether that person only used information that is publicly available to deduce how to do it at the new company.