A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


Entries for tag: Discovery Dispute

Be Specific B-E-Specific (Claps Hands And Stomps Foot)

Nathan R. Hoeschen, Oct. 17, 2024
Discovery Dispute

There's not a lot of space in a discovery dispute letter to get into the real nitty gritty of the dispute. You've gotta put in the standard, say the word "Pennypack" 20 or 30 times, and work in the phrase "flies in the face of" at least once.

Now that's flying in the face of something!
AI-Generated, displayed with permission

A recent opinion from Judge Burke, however, illustrates the folly of briefing disputes in this way, even if it is satisfying.

The defendant in Attentive Mobile Inc. v. Stodge Inc., C.A. No. 23-87, D.I. 400 (D. Del. Oct. 16, 2024) moved for a protective order to prevent the depositions of two employees. The opening letter apparently got quite into the weeds about the nature …

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Gotta Be Fast On Your Feet With Those Motions to Supplement

Andrew E. Russell, Oct. 9, 2024
Discovery Dispute Pennypack

Eventually we may run out of penny images for these Pennypack posts. But not yet.
Eventually we may run out of penny images for these Pennypack posts. But not yet. Sebastian Enrique, Unsplash

Yes, this is yet another Pennypack post. I can't resist. It's a tough-to-apply standard that impacts many cases (patent and otherwise). And it can sometimes seem to reward bad behavior by litigants, even—maybe especially—when applied as written.

But not this time! In Prolitec Inc. v. ScentAir Technology, LLC, C.A. No. 20-984-WCB (D. Del. Oct. 2, 2024), the patentee produced documents about a pre-priority-date sale of prior art after fact discovery closed and just five days before opening reports.

Unsurprisingly, the other side's opening expert report five days later did not include invalidity allegations about this sale.

But the …

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Court Denies Request for Discovery of Git / Version Control History for Source Code

Andrew E. Russell, Sept. 25, 2024
Source Code Discovery Dispute

Source Code
Markus Spiske, Unsplash

This is an issue I've seen come up a few times, but I don't know of another opinion on it offhand.

Source code is typically managed using a source control or version control system, typically (but not always) using a program called git. Git is a command-line program that allows developers to manage different versions of source code in a tree structure called a "repository."

A developer can create a "branch" within the repository, for example, to work on a specific feature. As they work on aspects of the code for that feature, they can "commit" them, along with a message about the purpose of their revisions. When they are done working on that feature, …

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Court Denies Production of Corporate-Level Financials

Andrew E. Russell, Sept. 9, 2024
Discovery Dispute Discovery

"Yes, we need to know their financials for our permanent injunction. It totally won't help us in settlement negotiations or anything." AI-Generated, displayed with permission

This is another one where I saw a potentially useful order about an issue that comes up from time to time, and thought "I should write a blog post about that, so I can find it later." I hope this will be helpful for others as well.

Last week in Nexus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Exela Pharma Sciences, LLC, C.A. No. 22-1233-GBW (D. Del.), the Court addressed the question of whether a plaintiff in a "competitor-competitor" patent case could compel production of the defendant's corporate-level financials. It held that no, it could not, …

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5-Body Problem

Nathan R. Hoeschen, June 13, 2024
Meet-and-Confer Discovery Dispute

Bringing a discovery dispute is a bit of a 3-body problem. At any given time, you've probably got a half dozen complaints with what the other side is doing. When one boils over into a dispute you have to grapple with whether you should just bring all of them—and risk looking unreasonable—or just address the most pressing and risk having to raise serial disputes, which might look even worse. The push and pull can quickly become insoluble.

Guillermo Ferla, Unsplash

Luckily, we got an Order from Judge Burke this week that should make this calculus slightly easier going forward.

The defendants in Bardy Diagnostics, Inc. v. Vital Connect, Inc., C.A. No. 22-351-CFC-CJB, D.I. 97 (D. Del. June 11, 2024) (Oral Order) brought the first discovery dispute of the case (by either party) via judge Burkes usual procedure of filing a letter listing the disputes.

The disputes read as the usual humdrum list of custodians not searched and rogs insufficiently answered. The only thing out of the ordinary, is that there were 5 of them included in the letter.

Judge Burke responded to the request for a teleconference the next day with ...

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Reminder: "Relevancy Redactions" Are Not a Thing, Ctd.

Andrew E. Russell, May 22, 2024
Discovery Dispute Relevancy Redactions

Just stop.
Just stop. Jana Knorr, Unsplash

Long-time readers can maybe skip this post, as we've discussed this issue before.

But I thought it was worth a post, because it's still something that comes up from time to time. But the court's rulings are clear: You can't redact information from document production just because you think it is irrelevant. You have to produce the documents without redactions.

This came up again this week, this time before visiting judge Murphy. Consistent with our other judges, he rejected the idea of permitting redactions of irrelevant material:

Defendants’ motion to modify the stipulated protective order (DI 52) is DENIED. . . . Defendants were unable to identify any occasion where a district court …
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Cross Briefing On Discovery Disputes Is Not an Opportunity to Pre-Brief the Other Side's Motion

Andrew E. Russell, May 20, 2024
Discovery Disputes Letter Briefs

"Guys, if we write our own opening brief on their issue, we'll get more than twice the page limit! The Court loves extra briefing, right?" ron dyar, Unsplash

I've had this come up a couple of times lately, and an opinion came out on Friday that addresses it.

Here is an example scenario: Each side has a discovery dispute. The Court sets a briefing schedule with opening, answering, and reply 3-page briefs. Can each side spend half of its opening brief pre-briefing the other side's issues? Should they?

Judge Fallon resolved this on Friday with a clear "No". You wait for the other side to file their brief, and then respond:

ORAL ORDER re 49 Joint Motion for Discovery …
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Delay Is a Motion Killer: Part Two

Andrew E. Russell, May 8, 2024
Discovery Disputes Motion Practice

Do It Now
Brett Jordan, Unsplash

Last month we wrote about how delay is a motion killer. Procrastination is a problem most of us litigators share. But if you want your discovery motion granted, it's best to move now not later. Keep up the pressure.

We got another example of that yesterday in Tot Power Control, S.L. v. LG Electronics Inc., C.A. No. 21-1304-MN (D. Del. Apr. 23, 2024) (unsealed May 7, 2024). Tot is an opinion by Judge Fallon on several discovery motions, and two of them were denied due to delay.

First, the Court denied a request to compel plaintiff to produce communications related to valuations it received. Back in June 2023, the plaintiff had agreed …

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Court Grants Financial Discovery on Unaccused Products "Associated with Accused Model Numbers"

Andrew E. Russell, April 25, 2024
Discovery Dispute

Colored Plants
Scott Webb, Unsplash

This decision is a bit dense, but it's on an issue that could come up in any case.

The plaintiff in TOT Power Control, S.L. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., C.A. No. 21-1305-MN (D. Del.) accused several products by name, and also stated in its infringement contentions that it would "seek discovery as to the identity of any [of the defendant's] products with substantially similar designs to the expressly listed accused products." D.I. 131.

The case progressed, and it turns out that the defendant does, indeed, have multiple products with similar names. The Court ultimately granted a motion to compel the defendant to provide financial discovery on each of the alternative products, even …

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Do We Now Know the Magic Words for Having Less Than 10 ESI Custodians?

Andrew E. Russell, April 24, 2024
Default Standard Discovery Dispute

"Our two identified custodians have the 'majority' of relevant docs and any others have 'duplicative' info." Discovery dispute goes *poof*? AI-Generated, displayed with permission

In the District of Delaware, unless the parties agree otherwise, ESI discovery is guided by the Default Standard for Discovery. The Court published the Default Standard over a decade ago, and at this point quite a bit of case law has developed interpreting its various provisions.

Among other things, the Default Standard requires each party to identify "[t]he 10 custodians most likely to have discoverable information" in a case. These custodians' files will ultimately be searched as part of the document production process.

One common question is: what if we have less than 10 custodians with discoverable information? The answer to that is typically "disclose what you have," but I had not seen a case setting a standard for when a party can disclose less than 10 custodians—until this week.

In Attentive Mobile Inc. v. 317 Labs, Inc., C.A. No. 22-1163-CJB (D. Del.), Judge Burke addressed a discovery dispute where the defendant identified just four custodians. He denied a motion to compel the identification of more custodians based on an argument that the four custodians had a "majority" of the non-duplicative ...

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