Articles Posted in Discovery

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In this patent infringement action, the defendants filed a motion to strike an errata change to the deposition testimony of a witness, Joseph Tindall. The district court noted that if the errata were allowed, it would change an answer from “yes” to “no.” As a justification for the change, the witness contended he “did not understand the question and gave an incorrect response when [he] answered it ‘yes.'” In response, the defendants argued that the requested change was improper.
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The defendants produced documents in response to plaintiffs’ first set of requests for production and included in the production were five documents that the defendants were later claim were subject to attorney-client privilege. Before the defendants made that claim, however, the plaintiffs deposed a corporate designee of Defendants Musion Events Ltd. and Musion 3D Ltd. During that deposition the five documents in questions were marked as exhibits. For some of the documents, the deponent testified regarding the contents of the documents and even read portions of the documents into the record–all without objection as to privilege or work product.

Shortly after that deposition, the defendants’ counsel to plaintiffs’ counsel and requested a claw-back of the five documents pursuant to the parties’ protective order.
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In this patent infringement action, the defendants conducted a “piecemeal approach to discovery, reviewing only the files of select corporate employees.” The district court found that this approach was contrary to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and to repeated orders of the court.

In response to plaintiff’s motion to compel, the defendant cited Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(2)(C), which allows the court to limit discovery if “the discovery sought is unreasonably cumulative or duplicative…” The district court noted that the rule “allows the court–not a party–to limit discovery where it is unduly burdensome. Absent such an order of the court, a party may not unilaterally refuse to comply with its discovery obligations.”
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When this patent infringement action began, the plaintiff explained that it was concerned that it would not be able to obtain important discovery if Ricoh Company Ltd. (“RCL”), which is the parent company of the defendants, Ricoh Electronics, Inc. (“REI”) and Ricoh Americas Corp. (“RAC”) were dismissed as a party. When they moved for dismissal, the defendants represented that: “IV identifies no information exclusively within the possession of RCL that is germane to its infringement case. On the other hand, it would be unreasonable and a hardship on RCL to force it to participate in litigation halfway around the world, particularly when RAC and REI are able and willing to contest IV’s claims.”

As explained by the district court, after the dismissal of RCL, REI and RAC stated that the technical documents sought by IV were not in their possession or control, but might be obtained from RCL. RCL then refused to provide the documents voluntarily. Unable to obtain the discovery from REI and RAC, IV sought discovery from RCL through international Letters Rogatory. That request was denied by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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The defendant filed a motion to compel, seeking a wide array of discovery against Plaintiffs Dyson, Inc. and Dyson Limited (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) to produce emails belonging to James Dyson (“Dyson”). Plaintiffs asserted that Dyson is Plaintiffs’ “global leader” and one of the named inventors on the patents-in-suit.

Although plaintiffs agreed to produce Dyson’s emails that are relevant to the issue of “inventorship,” they refused to produce documents relating to other issues, such as claim construction or infringement. The plaintiffs refused to produce any such emails because the “apex doctrine” requires that the defendants show that they could not obtain such evidence from other sources before obtaining them from high-ranking corporate officials, such as Dyson.
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Plaintiffs filed a declaratory judgment action seeking a declaration that U.S. Patent No. 7,923,221 (the “Cabilly III patent”), owned by Defendants, is invalid and therefore Plaintiffs do not owe royalties with respect to Praluent. During the case, Plaintiffs requested production of five executed settlement agreements that resolved prior litigations involving the Cabilly II and III patents and also requested a deposition regarding the agreements and the negotiations that led up to the agreements. Defendants represented that it would not use the agreements in the litigation.

The district court began its analysis by noting that “[o]ne potential methodology for valuing a patent is based on comparable licenses. ‘Such a model begins with rates from comparable licenses and then ‘account[s] for differences in the technologies and economic circumstances of the contracting parties.’ . . . The Federal Circuit has rejected the argument that licenses in settlement agreements are categorically irrelevant to a reasonably royalty. ‘While the fact that a settlement or settlement offer comes in the midst of litigation may affect the relevance of the settlement or offer, there is no per se rule barring reference to settlements simply because they arise from litigation.’ Astrazeneca AB v. Apotex Corp., 782 F.3d 1324, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2015).”
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In this patent infringement action pending in a multi-district litigation, one of the defendants moved the district court for an order allowing the defendant to destroy old backup tapes. Defendant ICM, Inc. (“ICM”) moved for an order permitting it to destroy old backup tapes that contain electronic business information of ICM for the years 2003 through 2009.
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In this patent infringement action, Slide Fire Solutions, LP (“Slide Fire”) moved to compel discovery responses from Bump Fire Systems (“Bump Fire”). Bump Fire also requested a protective order to prevent the disclosure of certain discovery, including sensitive trade secrets and financial information.

With respect to the financial information, the court analyzed the motion to compel under the new proportionality standards set for in Fed.R.Civ.P. 26: The party seeking discovery, to prevail on a motion to compel or resist a motion for protective order, may well need to make its own showing of many or all of the proportionality factors, including the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, and the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, in opposition to the resisting party’s showing. And the party seeking discovery is required to comply with Rule 26(b)(1)’s proportionality limits on discovery requests; is subject to Rule 26(g)(1)’s requirement to certify “that to the best of the person’s knowledge, information, and belief formed after a reasonable inquiry: … (B) with respect to a discovery request…, it is: (i) consistent with these rules and warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law, or for establishing new law; (ii) not interposed for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation; and (iii) neither unreasonable nor unduly burdensome or expensive, considering the needs of the case, prior discovery in the case, the amount in controversy, and the importance of the issues at stake in the action”; and faces Rule 26(g)(3) sanctions “[i]f a certification violates this rule without substantial justification.” FED. R. CIV. P. 26(g)(1)(B), 26(g)(3); see generally Heller v. City of Dallas, 303 F.R.D. 466, 475-77, 493¬95 (N.D. Tex. 2014).
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Plaintiff filed a patent infringement action, alleging that Defendant B2B Supply and Defendant Jerrell P. Squyres (hereinafter “Defendants”) infringed U.S. Patent No. 7,731,462 (the ‘462 patent). Toward the end of discovery, the Defendants served written discovery and filed a motion seeking to extend the discovery deadline by 50 days to complete fact discovery and compelling Plaintiff to produce all responsive documents, certify that its production is complete, produce witnesses for deposition, and answer Defendants’ interrogatories.

In support of the motion, Defendants argued that an extension was necessary because Plaintiff had withheld documents from production and had otherwise failed to cooperate with discovery. As explained by the district court, the Defendants argued they were unable to complete discovery because Plaintiff withheld production, provided deficient respondes to discovery, and failed to certify that it had produced all responsive documents, which prevented Defendants from using the information to serve additional written discovery requests and third party subpoenas. Plaintiff responded that it timely served its responses and objections to Defendants’ discovery requests and that it had been diligent in searching for responsive documents.
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In this patent infringement action, the plaintiff filed a motion for discovery sanctions. The plaintiff argued in its motion that defendant failed to comply with the district court’s October 7, 2015 oral discovery order and related text-only order, in which the district court apparently warned the defendant that failure to comply would result in sanctions.
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