A Blog About Intellectual Property Litigation and the District of Delaware


EGT
The Honorable Eleanor G. Tennyson

New Data Point: 45 Minutes of Meeting-and-Conferring Insufficient for "Multiple Discovery Disputes That Involve a Number of Broad Issues with Room for Reasonable Parties to Compromise"

Andrew E. Russell, Feb. 10, 2025
Meet-and-Confer

We'll all get it right eventually
Simon Ray, Unsplash

We've posted twice recently on Magistrate Judge Tennyson's practices regarding how long the parties should meet-and-confer before bringing a discovery dispute. In the prior posts, the parties presented a single discovery dispute issue. The parties initially met-and-conferred for 12 minutes, and the Court sent them back to meet-and-confer further. The Court later OK'd the dispute after they spent a total of 31 minutes on the issue.

On Friday, the Court issued an order in another case giving some more insight into this meet-and-confer requirement. In Media Content Protection LLC v. Dell Technologies, Inc., C.A. No. 20-1240-CFC-EGT (D. Del.), the parties filed a motion to raise three discovery issues with the Court, including two …

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Update on Monday's 12-Minute Meet-and-Confer Post, Plus Guidance from Court on Whether Motion to Stay Is a "Discovery Dispute"

Andrew E. Russell, Jan. 31, 2025
Motion to Stay Meet-and-Confer

Clock
Akram Huseyn, Unsplash

On Monday, we posted about how the Court had denied a motion to bring a discovery dispute, because a 12-minute meet-and-confer was not long enough.

If you were curious, as I was, about how long of a meet-and-confer would be sufficient, we now have a data point. The parties re-filed their letter after conducting an additional 19-minute meet-and-confer, and the Court granted their motion and permitted them to bring the dispute to the Court.

So the data points we have so far are that 12 minutes is insufficient, and that two meet-and-confers totaling 31 minutes (12+19) were sufficient.

There is obviously a range of times in between those numbers that might or might not …

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Court Denies Motion to Bring Discovery Dispute Because Meet-and-Confer Was Not Long Enough

Andrew E. Russell, Jan. 27, 2025
Discovery Disputes Meet-and-Confer

Will they use a phone like this? No. But I couldn't find a good image for
Will they use a phone like this? No. But I couldn't find a good image for "Zoom meeting where everyone but that one person has their camera off." Quino Al, Unsplash

We haven't had many posts yet on the Court's newest magistrate judge, Judge Tennyson. But we got an interesting data point on Friday when the Court ruled on a motion to schedule a teleconference to resolve a discovery dispute.

In Inari Medical, Inc. v. Inquis Medical, Inc., C.A. No. 24-1023-CFC-EGT (D. Del.), Chief Judge Connolly referred all discovery disputes to Judge Tennyson. Shortly thereafter, the parties submitted a form motion following her guidelines to initiate a discovery dispute.

The motion identified the amount of …

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