The district court had previously ordered plaintiffs to produce certain documents to the extent that documents containing communications between plaintiff and its non-attorney patent agents were not subject to the attorney-client privilege. The district court ordered a one-week stay to allow the filing of any appeal. Rather than producing the documents in compliance with the order, the plaintiffs filed a petition for Writ of Mandamus with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
The district court elected to stay plaintiffs’ production “pending disposition of the petition or other order of the Court of Appeals” and that production remained stayed pending resolution by the Federal Circuit. “A failure to stay the production would have forced the Circuit to consider an emergency motion to stay. Plaintiffs knew that their decision to forego compliance with the discovery order endangered the trial date.”
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