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In a previous litigation involving ZTE (but not the plaintiff), ZTE entered into a consulting arrangement with Dr. Madisetti. ZTE asserted that ZTE provided Dr. Madisetti with confidential information under the consulting agreement. When the plaintiff in this case, Bell Northern Research (“BNR”) retained Dr. Madisetti as an expert against ZTE, ZTE moved for a protective order to preclude BNR from using Dr. Madisetti as an expert.

ZTE initially asserted that the terms of the Consulting Agreement prohibited Dr. Madisetti from serving as an expert for BNR in this case. BNR responded to that argument that the Agreement is no longer valid and Dr. Madisetti’s expertise in the current litigation would not involve products at issue in the previous matter.

The court agreed with ZTE, noting that the Consulting Agreement provided that it would terminate after the longest of three distinct time periods. “Though two years have passed from the effective date of the Agreement, the latter two time periods are not yet complete. First, Dr. Madisetti has not necessarily completed all work performed under the agreement, because the InterDigital District Litigation remains stayed, and there is a chance that more claims may arise. Second, because the InterDigital District Litigation is currently stayed and not complete—meaning the requisite one-year period following the close of that case has not yet begun—the agreement remains in effect. While BNR is correct that the InterDigital District Litigation has been stayed for a long time and that ZTE has advocated for the litigation to end, the fact remains that the litigation has not ended and therefore, the Consulting Agreement between ZTE and Dr. Madisetti remains in effect.”

In this patent infringement action, the defendants, Synergistics, Inc. (“Synergistics”), filed a motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction. The plaintiff, Parabit Systems, Inc. (“Parabit”), opposed the motion on the ground that it was not required to establish personal jurisdiction in the complaint and that Synergistics had failed to come forward with any evidence that the district court did not have personal jurisdiction over it.

The district court agreed with Parabit, noting that a plaintiff does not have plead allegations pertaining to personal jurisdiction in the complaint. “The motion is mainly focused on the adequacy of allegations of personal jurisdiction in the complaint, but plaintiff has no obligation under Rule 8 to plead any allegations pertaining to personal jurisdiction, and so a complaint cannot inadequately allege the basis for personal jurisdiction.”

The district court also determined that Synergistics had not set forth any facts in any evidentiary form to switch the burden of proving personal jurisdiction to Parabit: “defendants have merely made allegations in their brief, but have submitted no affidavits or other evidence to support those statements. Although plaintiff has the burden of proving personal jurisdiction when it is properly challenged, defendants had the burden of going forward to show at least a colorable basis for challenging personal jurisdiction, and unsupported statements in a brief do not do that.”

In this patent infringement action, Stryker moved to strike the expert report of Karl Storz’ (“KSEA”) infringement expert because the expert did not provide any analysis of infringement of the patent-in-suit. As explained by the district court, Karl Storz’ infringement expert’s, Mr. Gould Bear, report included six sections: (1) introduction, (2) summary of conclusions, (3) background and qualifications, (4) materials reviewed, (5) legal principals and methods, and (6) conclusion.

The expert report did not provide any analysis regarding how “the accused products literally include each element of Claims 1, 2 and 3 of the ’420 Patent.” And the district court explained that “[e]ven Mr. Gould Bear’s description of his process is conclusory: ‘I have analyzed literal infringement with respect to each limitation of the asserted patent claim, comparing the accused products – in their ordinary and intended uses – to the invention described in the patent claim they are alleged to infringe. When analyzing a dependent claim, I determined whether the allegedly infringing products include each and every element of the dependent claim, the independent claim from which it depends and all intermediate dependent claims.’ (Id. at 14-15 ¶ 32.)

The expert report made no effort to explain how the expert determined that the allegedly infringing products include each element of the dependent claim and instead just stated he had made that determination.

Feit Electric Company and Feit Electric Company, Inc. (collectively, “Feit”) filed a motion to enforce a subpoena for documents to non-parties Amerlux, LLC and Amerlux Exterior, LLC (collectively, “Amerlux”). The complainant in the ITC proceeding, Philips Lighting North America Corp. and Philips Lighting Holding B.V. (collectively, “Philips”) asserted U.S. Patent Nos. 6,586,890; 7,256,554; 8,070,328; 7,038,399 (“the ‘399 patent”); and 7,262,559 (“the ‘559 patent”) against Feit.

Philips had previously asserted two of the patent—the ‘399 and ‘559 patents—against Amerlux in a patent infringement action in the District of Massachusetts (Koninklijke Philips, NV et al. v. Amerlux, LLC et al., Case No. 1-15-cv-13086). This case was dismissed before Amerlux disclosed its invalidity contentions and, therefore, Amerlux never had to disclose the prior art that it had found.

Feit served a subpoena on Amerlux “seek[ing] all prior art to the Asserted Patents known to Amerlux.” Feit subsequently agreed to limit the subpoena to prior art relating to the ‘399 and ‘559 patents. Amerlux contended that the identity of the prior art—other than the references identified in its answer to the complaint—should be protected by the work-product doctrine.

GemShares LLC filed a patent infringement action against Arthur Lipton and Secured Worldwide, LLC (SWW) on U.S. Patent No. 8,706,513 B2 (the ‘513 patent). The ‘513 patent is entitled “global investment grade for natural and synthetic gems used in financial investments and commercial trading and method of creating standardized baskets of gems to be used in financial and commercial products.”

According to the district court, Lipton became a one-fifth owner of GemShares in 2013, while the patent application was pending. Lipton executed an operating agreement that included a term requiring him (and other GemShares members) to disclose and present to the company opportunities related to or likely to be competitive with GemShares’ business.

In its complaint, GemShares alleged that in the fall of 2013, Lipton secretly started working on a business that GemShares alleged is a competing business (SWW). Lipton allegedly created SWW to commercialize products and services that infringe GemShares’ patents, including the patent-in-suit.

In this patent infringement case, Plaintiff and Counter-defendant Bal Seal Engineering, Inc. (“Bal Seal”) filed a joint stipulation pursuant to Local 37-2 moving to compel Defendant and Counterclaimant Nelson Products, Inc. (“NPI”) to provide further responses to Bal Seal’s Interrogatories. These included contention interrogatories (the “Contention Interrogatories”) seeking “all facts” supporting allegations in NPI’s Second Amended Answer and Counterclaims (“SACC”).

In the joint stipulation, Bal Seal sought to compel responses to twenty interrogatories asking that NPI “state all facts” supporting allegations in its SACC. (Dkt. 129-1 at 11-22 (quoting Contention Interrogatories Nos. 1-11, 16-19, 24-27, and 30).) Bal Seal served the Contention Interrogatories on October 27, 2016 (Nos. 1-11) and May 3, 2017 (Nos. 16-19, 24­27, and 30), yet had received no substantive response as of the Motion’s December 2017 filing (Dkt. 129-3, ¶¶ 4, 8.).

Rather than respond to the interrogatories, NPI had served objections, which included the following statement: “NPI … objects to this request in that it is premature to answer contention interrogatories at this time and NPI will supplement this response at the close of discovery.” (Dkt. 129-1 at 11-22.)

The plaintiff, Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC’s (“Realtime”) filed an ex parte application to file its Certification and Notice of Interested Parties under seal (the “Application”) at the beginning of this patent infringement case.  Realtime asserted that it should be permitted to file the Certification under seal in order to keep confidential the identity of the litigation financing company engaged in the case.

Realtime argued that the agreement between Realtime and the litigation funder “explicitly provides that the identity of the parties to the agreement is itself to be treated as confidential information” and “that all terms of the agreement are to be treated as confidential information.”

The district court began its analysis by noting that the courts recognize a “general right to inspect and copy public records and documents, including judicial records and documents.” Nixon v. Warner Commc’ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 597 & n. 7 (1978). They also “have expressly recognized that the federal common law right of access extends to pretrial documents filed in civil cases.” San Jose Mercury News, Inc. V. U.S. Dist. Court–Northern Dist. (San Jose), 187 F.3d 1096, 1102 (9th Cir. 1999). Thus, “unless a particular court record is one ‘traditionally kept secret,’ a ‘strong presumption in favor of access’ is the starting point.” Kamakana v. City and Cnty. of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1178 (9th Cir.2006) (quoting Foltz v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 331 F.3d 1122, 1135 (9th Cir.2003)). For non-dispositive motions, “a ‘particularized showing’ under the ‘good cause’ standard of Rule 26(c) will suffice.” Id. at 1180 (quoting Foltz, 331 F.3d at 1138).

Greatbatch moved in limine to preclude the defendant, AVX, from presenting the testimony of AVX’s expert, Dr. Panlener, by deposition. The district court concluded that permitting the expert to testify would deprive Greatbatch of the opportunity to challenge Dr. Panlener’s “credibility and would be unfairly prejudicial, under the totality of circumstances, including Dr. Panlener’s role as an employee and then consultant to AVX, his numerous instances testifying (including as a corporate representative), and representations made as to the termination of his relationship with AVX (which appears to have been related to conduct that may be probative of issues that are the subject of the forthcoming trial).”

The district court also noted that AVX may have “procured” the absence of Dr. Panlener by terminating its relationship with him after relying on his deposition testimony and depriving Greatbatch of an opportunity to cross-examine him regarding that termination and then attempting to rely on Dr. Panlener’s necessarily incomplete testimony at trial. The district court concluded that regardless of whether AVX may fairly be viewed as having “procured” Dr. Panlener’s absence, “the Court agrees with Greatbatch that it would be unfair to permit AVX to secure Dr. Panlener’s self-serving testimony about, for instance, the purported pin washer changes, and thereafter fire him so that AVX can play his deposition to the jury and avoid the specter of his live testimony.”

The district court also disagreed with the defendant’s argument that it was entitled to present Dr. Panlener’s deposition testimony at trial under Rule 32(a)(4)(B) (“A party may use for any purpose the deposition of a witness . . .”). The district court found that the Rule 32 did not  override the district court’s “discretion to manage the trial in a manner that is fair to both sides and consistent with all other applicable rules.” See generally Garcia-Martinez v. City & Cty. of Denver, 392 F.3d 1187, 1191 (10th Cir. 2004) (“Other cases hold that the mere fact that a party is more than 100 miles from the courthouse does not require the district court to automatically admit a party’s deposition.”) (emphasis added).