Articles Posted in Discovery

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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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On November 17, 2015, during a deposition of a fact witness, counsel for the plaintiff, Ericsson Inc. (“Ericsson”), attempted to question the witness regarding a litigation hold memorandum (the “memo”). Counsel for the plaintiff stated that she inquired as to the existence of such a memo, the date received, if any, and the recipients of the memo, if any.

Plaintiff’s counsel explained to the court that the witness was directed by counsel not to answer the questions on the basis of attorney-client privilege. The court was further advised that the information was relevant because there are allegations of potential spoliation in this case.
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The defendants filed a motion to stay discovery until the district court ruled upon its motion to dismiss pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 101. In their motion to stay, Defendants asserted that its motion to stay discovery should be granted because it is a dispositive motion to dismiss that is likely to be granted, which would render any discovery conducted unnecessary and wasteful.

Plaintiff argued in opposition to the motion to stay that the Defendant’s motion to dismiss is not likely to be granted and also that the parties previously agreed that no Rule 12 motion concerning the pleadings would delay the commencement or conducting of discovery. Plaintiff also argued that it has incurred significant expenses in the litigation and that a stay of discovery would be prejudicial and harmful.
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Plaintiffs Ericsson Inc. and Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson’s (“Ericsson”) filed a motion to compel discovery of source code and technical documents, pursuant to Local Patent Rule 3-4 in the Eastern District of Texas. As explained by the district court, Patent Local Rule 3-4 requires the party opposing a claim of infringement to produce or make available “[s]ource code, specifications, schematics, flow charts, artwork, formulas, or other documentation sufficient to show the operation of any aspects or elements of an Accused Instrumentality identified by the patent claimant in its P. R. 3-1(c) chart.”
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Plaintiffs filed an action defendants, Bouncing Angels, Inc. for, among other things, patent and copyright infringement. Plaintiffs successfully moved the district court to allow them to amend the complaint to add the owner of defendant Bouncing Angels, Inc., as a defendant based on financial evidence they discovered that could support an argument in favor of piercing the corporate veil. Discovery was extended “for the limited purpose of allowing discovery and dispositive motions only on issues relating to piercing the corporate veil.” The plaintiffs filed a motion to compel discovery on that issue.

As explained by the court, “[t]he discovery requests at issue in the Motion are all directed at defendant Bouncing Angels, and consist of document requests, requests for admissions, and an interrogatory. The discovery seeks Bouncing Angels’ tax returns and annual statements for a number of years, loan and security documents relating to a line of credit, information as to this defendant’s working capital, and whether Bouncing Angels ever conducted an independent audit.”
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Sprint Communications Company, L.P., filed a patent-infringement action against Comcast Cable Communications, LLC, Comcast IP Phone, LLC, and Comcast Phone of Kansas, LLC (collectively, “Comcast”). The district court had previously ordered Comcast to produce seven emails received by Comcast’s in-house patent counsel, David Marcus, that Comcast had improperly withheld as privileged. After it received copies of the emails, Sprint moved to compel Comcast to produce Marcus for a second deposition to answer questions related to the emails.

The district court explained that the “recently produced emails involve communications from 2007 between in-house counsel for Comcast, Cox, and Time Warner Cable, and attorneys from the law firm of Dreier, LLP. The three cable companies had jointly retained Dreier to monitor proceedings in a patent-infringement lawsuit that Sprint had brought against Vonage Holdings Corp. and Vonage America, Inc. in the District of Kansas. Some of the patents that were at issue in Vonage are at issue in this case.”
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Defendants filed a motion to compel Adaptix to re-produce documents that Adaptix had clawed back on the grounds of privilege. Adaptix had early produced the documents in several productions. The Defendants argued in the motion that even if Adaptix could demonstrate the documents are privileged, Adaptix waived the privilege because Defendants had notified Adaptix that they were relying on the documents at least nine months before Adaptix sent its clawback letter. Defendants pointed out that they had relied on information disclosed in the documents in depositions, expert reports, and briefing, all without any objection from Adaptix.

In response, Adaptix asserted that its data vendor erroneously produced the documents to Defendants without Adaptix knowledge even though they had been properly tagged as privileged. Adaptix also asserted that the documents fell within the protections of the attorney client work product doctrine because they pertained to testing that was performed for purposes of litigation at the direction of Adaptix’s attorneys. Adaptix then argued that it was only in March of 2015 that it “eventually realized the error of Defendants’ access to the documents at issue and promptly sent a letter clawing them back.”
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Defendant Samsung Electronics Co. (“Samsung”) filed a motion to compel plaintiff Cascades Computer Innovation, LLC (“Cascades”) to produce additional documents and to require its trial counsel to appear for a deposition. Samsung moved to compel the deposition of Cascade’s trial counsel based on the argument that Cascades’s principal, Anthony Brown, had communicated with the trial counsel (Mr. Niro) regarding licensing and settlement negotiations.

The district court agreed that “[b]ased on the record before the Court, it is clear that Mr. Niro discussed with Brown facts and strategy for Brown’s use during licensing and settlement negotiations and also suggested appropriate outcomes.” But the district court found that this was not surprising as “[ll]awyers representing clients involved in contract or settlement negotiations do that every day. Doing so does not make the lawyer a witness in resulting litigation.”
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Apple filed a motion to compel discovery from Farstone Technology, Inc. (“Farstone”) by way of a Joint Stipulation as required by the court’s local rules. After the court reviewed the joint stipulation, it found that there were significant problems and that too many disputes remained for the court to resolve.

As a result, the court concluded that the meet and confer process had failed that the parties had not complied with Local Rule 37-1. “After reading the Joint Stipulation, the Court cannot but conclude that the meet and confer process has failed. There are far too many disputed issues. Both sides are not being as reasonable and flexible as they should be and as the Local Rules contemplate. Specifically, Local Rule 37-1 requires counsel to ‘confer in a good faith effort to eliminate the necessity for hearing the motion or to eliminate as many of the disputes as possible.’ (Emphasis added.)”
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Plaintiff Stoneeagle Services, Inc. (“Stoneeagle”) filed a motion seeking sanctions against Defendant Premier Healthcare Exchange, Inc. (“PHX”) for failing to provide a prepared corporate representative to testify pursuant to Rule 30(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In response to the motion, PHX did not dispute that its corporate representative was unable to respond to all of the questions posed to him during the deposition, but instead asserted that the notice of deposition contained forty-five deposition topics covering broad topics and, therefore, lacked specificity.

The district court first analyzed the requirement of Rule 30(b)(6), noting that the corporation’s obligation under Rule 30(b)(6) “does not mean that the witness can never answer that the corporation lacks knowledge of a certain fact.” New World Network Ltd. v. M/V Norwegian Sea, 2007 WL 1068124 (S.D. Fla. 2007) (“if a witness is not prepared to answer a slew of questions that are glaringly irrelevant to the claims or defenses in a case, a requesting party who seeks to compel or sanction a deponent for not knowing such answers will not be successful before the Court, and indeed may himself be sanctioned under Rule 37 if the Court finds that the questions were so improper and the party’s position substantial unjustified”).
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