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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