Entangled Media, LLC v. Dropbox, Inc.

District Court, N.D. California·Decided April 8, 2025·No. 5:23-cv-03264·Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 SAN JOSE DIVISION 7 8 ENTANGLED MEDIA, LLC, Case No. 23-cv-03264-PCP (VKD)

9 Plaintiff, REDACTED

10 v. ORDER RE DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO COMPEL LITIGATION FUNDING 11 DROPBOX INC., DOCUMENTS 12 Defendant. Re: Dkt. No. 202

13 14 Defendant Dropbox, Inc. (“Dropbox”) moves for an order compelling plaintiff Entangled 15 Media, LLC (“Entangled Media”) to produce certain materials related to Entangled Media’s 16 litigation funding. Dkt. No. 202. Entangled Media opposes the motion. Dkt. No. 219. Having 17 considered the parties’ written submissions and the oral arguments presented at the hearing on this 18 matter, the Court grants in part Dropbox’s motion to compel.1 19 I. BACKGROUND 20 Entangled Media has received and continues to receive litigation funding from non-party 21 LIT-US Chisum 22-B LLC (“Chisum”) with respect to this litigation. Dkt. No. 219 at 2. 22 Entangled Media has produced a Patent Security Agreement (“PSA”) between it and Chisum, but 23 objects to Dropbox’s efforts to obtain additional information about a related “Security 24 Agreement”,2 its negotiations and communications with Chisum, the nature of its relationship with 25 1 The Court will issue a separate order on the associated sealing motions (Dkt. Nos. 201, 218). 26 Information publicly disclosed in this order reflects information for which the Court has determined sealing is not warranted. 27 1 Chisum, and any valuations prepared in connection with the funding. Id. at 1. 2 Entangled Media’s Second Corrected Amended Privilege Log includes 585 entries 3 corresponding to documents Entangled Media has withheld from production, in whole or in part. 4 Dkt. No. 201-4. Of these, Dropbox identifies 162 documents, including the Security Agreement, 5 that are likely responsive to its discovery requests and should be produced. Dkt. No. 202 at 4, 6. 6 Entangled Media responds that the documents are not relevant, and even if they were relevant, the 7 work product doctrine and the common-interest doctrine shield them from disclosure. 8 At the Court’s direction, on August 26, 2024, Entangled Media submitted an unredacted 9 copy of the Security Agreement for in camera review. See Dkt. Nos. 125, 132. Upon review of 10 the in camera submission, the Court issued an order, which included the following observations: 11 . . . Chisum does not merely have a passive security interest in the asserted patents. As may be expected, Chisum has a financial 12 interest in, among other things, the outcome of this litigation, and 13 the Security Agreement affords Chisum some contractual rights in connection with that interest. . . . [T]he Security Agreement includes 14 provisions that could be construed as providing some indication of how the parties to the agreement valued this and other potential 15 litigation relating to the asserted patents; however, consistent with Entangled Media’s representations, the Security Agreement does not 16 include a valuation of the asserted patents per se. 17 Dkt. No. 132 at 1-2. 18 The Court directed the parties to brief their dispute regarding the documents in question as 19 a regularly noticed motion. See Dkt. Nos. 125, 132. Fact discovery closed on November 22, 20 2024. Dropbox filed this motion to compel on November 29, 2024. 21 II. LEGAL STANDARD 22 A. Scope of Discovery 23 A party may obtain discovery of any matter that is relevant to a claim or defense and that is 24 “proportional to the needs of the case, considering the importance of the issues at stake in the 25 action, the amount in controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ 26 resources, the importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or 27 expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). 1 B. Work Product Doctrine 2 The attorney work product doctrine protects from discovery documents and tangible things 3 prepared by a party or his representative in anticipation of litigation or for trial. Fed. R. Civ. P. 4 26(b)(3); United States v. Sanmina Corp., 968 F.3d 1107, 1119 (9th Cir. 2020) (citation omitted). 5 “To qualify for work-product protection, documents must: (1) be prepared in anticipation of 6 litigation or for trial and (2) be prepared by or for another party or by or for that other party’s 7 representative.” United States v. Richey, 632 F.3d 559, 567 (9th Cir. 2011) (internal quotes 8 omitted). A document is considered prepared “in anticipation of litigation” if it can be fairly said 9 to have been prepared or obtained “because of the prospect of litigation.” ACLU of N. California 10 v. United States DOJ, 880 F.3d 473, 485 (9th Cir. 2018); see also id. at 486-87 (“We have never 11 held . . . that attorney work product must be prepared in anticipation of specific litigation to be 12 privileged, and we decline to do so here.”). 13 The doctrine protects both “material prepared by agents for the attorney as well as those 14 prepared by the attorney himself,” Sanmina Corp., 968 F.3d at 1119, and its primary purpose is to 15 “prevent exploitation of a party’s efforts in preparing for litigation,” Admiral Ins. Co. v. U.S. Dist. 16 Ct., 881 F.2d 1486, 1494 (9th Cir. 1989). See United States v. Nobles, 422 U.S. 225, 238 (1975) 17 (“At its core, the work-product doctrine shelters the mental processes of the attorney, providing a 18 privileged area within which he can analyze and prepare his client’s case.”). Typically, work 19 product protection extends to interview notes, memoranda, summaries, and analyses, as well as to 20 verbatim witness statements. See Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 511 (1947); Hatamian v. 21 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., No. 14-cv-00226-YGR (JSC), 2016 WL 2606830, at *3 (N.D. Cal. 22 May 6, 2016). 23 A party asserting work product protection bears the burden of demonstrating that the 24 protection applies. See, e.g., Visa U.S.A., Inc. v. First Data Corp., No. 02-cv-1786 JSW (EMC), 25 2004 WL 1878209, at *5 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 23, 2004). 26 The protections afforded by the work product doctrine are not absolute and may be waived. 27 Nobles, 422 U.S. at 239. An express or voluntary disclosure of work product waives the 1 made in a manner that substantially increases the opportunities for potential adversaries to obtain 2 the work product. Sanmina, 968 F.3d at 1121 (citing 8 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller, 3 Federal Practice & Procedure § 2024 (3d ed. 2020)); see also Nidec Corp. v. Victor Co. of Japan, 4 249 F.R.D. 575, 578 (N.D. Cal. 2007) (“[T]he work-product privilege may be waived by 5 disclosure to third parties which results in disclosure to an adversary party.”). Work product 6 protection may also be waived implicitly by putting the protected work product at issue, such as 7 by asserting claims that the opposing party cannot adequately dispute unless it has access to that 8 protected work product. See Bittaker v. Woodford, 331 F.3d 715, 719 (9th Cir. 2003); see also 9 Chevron Corp. v.

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