Glaxo, Inc. v. Novopharm Ltd.

148 F.R.D. 535, 27 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 780, 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6384, 1993 WL 151839
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. North Carolina
DecidedApril 27, 1993
DocketNo. 91-759-CIV-5-BO
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 148 F.R.D. 535 (Glaxo, Inc. v. Novopharm Ltd.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. North Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Glaxo, Inc. v. Novopharm Ltd., 148 F.R.D. 535, 27 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 780, 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6384, 1993 WL 151839 (E.D.N.C. 1993).

Opinion

ORDER

TERRENCE WILLIAM BOYLE, District Judge.

This matter is currently before the court for consideration of two outstanding motions. Defendant Novopharm has moved to compel discovery of documents withheld by plaintiff Glaxo under an assertion of attorney-client privilege. Novopharm has also moved to vitiate the attorney-client privilege for certain documents that it contends were prepared by Glaxo employees and attorneys in furtherance of a fraud on the patent office. For the reasons set out below, the motion to compel is granted in part and denied in part, and the motion to vitiate privilege is denied.

I. FACTS

A. The Infringement Suit.

Plaintiff Glaxo currently holds two patents on a chemical known as ranitidine, which they have marketed as an anti-ulcer drug under the brand name Zantac. The first of these patents (the ’658 patent), covers raniti-dine generally, including a particular crystal [537]*537form of ranitidine hydrochloride which Glaxo calls Form 1. The ’658 patent expires in 1995. The second patent (the ’431 patent), covering a different crystalline form of raniti-dine hydrochloride which Glaxo calls Form 2, expires in 2002.

In August of 1991, defendant Novopharm Ltd., a generic drug manufacturer from Canada, filed an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) with the Food and Drug Administration requesting permission to market a generic equivalent to Zantac upon the expiration of the ’658 patent in 1995. This application constitutes statutory infringement on the ’431 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271, and Glaxo consequently filed the instant infringement action in November 1991. In its answer, Novopharm raised as a defense that the ’431 patent is invalid because the product it protects was inherent in the ’658 patent.

B. Glaxo’s Claims of Privilege.

In response to Novopharm’s discovery requests, Glaxo has submitted a schedule of 180 documents which it contends are privileged as either confidential attorney-client communications or as attorney work product. Glaxo has refused to produce the materials listed in the schedule, and Novopharm challenges Glaxo’s assertion of privilege for almost all of these documents.

In its initial memorandum in support of its motion to compel, Novopharm argued that certain documents withheld by Glaxo were not privileged. Glaxo’s position in its response was that the requested documents are not relevant to the inherency defense Novo-pharm had raised, and that privilege was properly asserted for each of the classes of documents Novopharm challenged.

C. Novopharm’s Charges of Fraud.

At this point, Novopharm filed a reply reasserting its prior lack of privilege arguments. It also filed a motion to amend its answer to raise the defense of inequitable conduct, and in a separate document moved to vitiate privilege on the ground that certain submissions in support of the ’431 patent were fraudulent and therefore fall within the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege.

The basis for this set of filings apparently was Novopharm’s belief after a period of discovery that not only was Form 2 produced when a chemist performs the Example 32 process patented in the ’658 patent, but Glaxo knew this and knowingly made false representations to the contrary in the ’431 patent application. Novopharm sought to use evidence of these alleged misrepresentations in two ways. First, Novopharm moved to amend its answer to raise the alleged fraud on the patent office as an affirmative defense. Second, it contends that the fraud provides a basis for vitiating Glaxo’s claims of privilege under the crime-fraud exception, and argues that the court should therefore compel production of all documents prepared in the course of the alleged fraud.

In an order dated March 20, 1993, the court allowed Novopharm’s motion to amend. It appears from Glaxo’s schedule of privileged documents that all of the documents Novopharm has sought to compel would either relate directly to that inquiry or are likely to lead to other discoverable matter. See Fed.R.Civ.P. Rule 26. Having determined that the documents listed in Novo-pharm’s motion to compel are relevant, the court turns first to whether the privileges asserted by Glaxo apply, and then to whether the privilege should be vitiated based on Novopharm’s showing of fraud.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Defendant’s Motion to Compel.

In its motion to compel, Novopharm challenges Glaxo’s assertions of privilege for a number of documents which Novopharm alleges are (1) in the public domain, (2) addressed to technical and business rather than legal matters, (3) memoranda to the file (and thus not communications from attorney to client at all), or (4) communications received or authored by Glaxo’s non-attorney patent agents in the United Kingdom. All the documents in each of these categories, Novopharm contends, should be produced.

Wigmore has defined the attorney-client privilege as follows:

[538]*538(1) Where legal advice of any kind is sought (2) from a professional legal adviser in his capacity as such, (3) the communications relating to that purpose (4) made in confidence (5) by the client, (6) are at his instance permanently protected (7) from disclosure by himself or by the legal adviser, (8) except the protection be waived.

8 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 2292 (MacNaugh-ton rev. 1961). The purpose of the privilege is to encourage free communication between client and attorney. Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383, 101 S.Ct. 677, 66 L.Ed.2d 584 (1981). Although at its heart the privilege applies only to communications from client to attorney, protection “may ... be extended to protect communications by a lawyer to his client, agents or superiors, or to other lawyers in the case of joint representation if those communications reveal confidential client communications.” United States v. (Under Seal), 748 F.2d 871, 874 (4th Cir. 1984). Of course, if the client communicates information to the attorney with the expectation that it will be revealed to others, then that information and the underlying details are not privileged. Id., at 875. In determining whether a communication is confidential, the reviewing court should look to the circumstances, including the services which the attorney was employed to provide. Id.

Keeping these standards in mind, the court now turns to the list of privileged documents provided by Glaxo in this ease. The burden of proving privilege rests on the party resisting disclosure, Fisher v. United States, 425 U.S. 391, 96 S.Ct. 1569, 48 L.Ed.2d 39 (1976); Under Seal, 748 F.2d at 876, so for each of the listed documents it is Glaxo’s responsibility to show that they are protected. In order to carry its burden, Glaxo’s schedule sets out the dates, addressor and addressee, and any copy recipients for each of the 180 documents, along with a brief description of the subject matter of the communication.

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148 F.R.D. 535, 27 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 780, 1993 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6384, 1993 WL 151839, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/glaxo-inc-v-novopharm-ltd-nced-1993.