A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


Broken Lock
iMattSmart, Unsplash

This is your daily reminder to support your privilege claims with detailed facts.

In a two-page order yesterday, Judge Andrews overruled objections to an R&R on a motion to compel issued by Magistrate Judge Fallon. Baxalta Inc. v. Bayer Healthcare, LLC, C.A. No. 17-1316-RGA (D. Del. July 15, 2020). The document in question was a presentation prepared by a non-lawyer, with a slide on patent risks that mentioned "FTO and litigation" and "2nd legal opinion pending (Q1 08)."

The fact that these bullet points mentioned requests (or potential requests) for legal help was not enough. As Judge Andrews put it, they don't "show the substance of any attorney-client communications." And because the defendant apparently "did not provide any testimony that would support a finding of attorney-client privilege" from the person who made the slide, there was no basis to find that this information was privileged.

If you enjoyed this post, consider subscribing to receive free e-mail updates about new posts.

All

Similar Posts