Invensas Corp. v. Renesas Electronics Corp.

287 F.R.D. 273, 84 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 115, 2012 WL 6042605, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 178357
CourtDistrict Court, D. Delaware
DecidedNovember 21, 2012
DocketCivil Action No. 11-448-GMS-CJB
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 287 F.R.D. 273 (Invensas Corp. v. Renesas Electronics Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Delaware primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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Invensas Corp. v. Renesas Electronics Corp., 287 F.R.D. 273, 84 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 115, 2012 WL 6042605, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 178357 (D. Del. 2012).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM ORDER

CHRISTOPHER J. BURKE, United States Magistrate Judge.

Pending before the Court in this patent infringement action is Plaintiff Invensas Cor[275]*275poration’s (“Invensas” or “Plaintiff’) letter motion seeking to compel discovery (the “Motion to Compel”) regarding certain of Defendant Renesas Electronics Corporation’s (“Renesas” or “Defendant”) products that have not yet been specifically accused of infringement. For the reasons discussed below, the Court GRANTS-IN-PART Plaintiffs motion, with the scope of the compelled discovery to be limited as outlined below.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Procedural Posture

On May 23, 2011, Plaintiff filed its Complaint in this action, asserting that Defendant infringes four of its patents: U.S. Patent No. 6,777,802 (“the '802 Patent”), entitled “Integrated Circuit Package Substrate with Multiple Voltage Supplies;” U.S. Patent No. 6,825,-554 (“the '554 Patent”), entitled “PBGA Electrical Noise Isolation of Signal Traces;” U.S. Patent No. 6,566,167 (“the '167 Patent”), entitled “PBGA Electrical Noise Isolation of Signal Traces;” and U.S. Patent No. 6,396,-140 (“the '140 Patent”), entitled “Single Reference Plane Plastic Ball Grid Array Package” (collectively, the “patents-in-suit”). (D.I. 1) Plaintiff alleges in the Complaint that Defendant infringes each of the patents-in-suit “by, among other things, making, using, selling, offering to sell, and/or importing infringing devices, including, by way of example and without limitation, infringing semiconductor assemblies.... ” (D.I. 1 at ¶¶ 7,13, 19, 25)1 On October 28, 2011, Defendant filed its Answer and Counterclaims. (D.I. 7)

B. The Parties and the Technology-at-Issue

Plaintiff Invensas is a semiconductor technology company that, inter alia, has built a patent portfolio covering inventions relating to electronics products, including the patents-in-suit. (D.I. 38 at 3) Defendant Rene-sas is a company that is one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers, employing more than 13,000 people. (D.I. 41 at 2; D.I. 42 at ¶ 2) Over 600 of those employees, located in eight different facilities throughout Japan, are involved in the packaging and testing of semiconductor products. (Id.) Renesas came into being as the result of a 2010 merger between Renesas Technology and NEC Electronics. (D.I. 42 at ¶ 3)

The technology at issue in this action is that used to manufacture semiconductor packages. (D.I. 38 at 3) A semiconductor package is a casing containing semiconductor chips; these packages operate as the interface between the chips and the electronic products in which the packages are incorporated (including cameras, computers, and phones). (Id.) The packages also serve to protect the chips from contamination, damage and the effects of exposure to extreme temperatures. (Id.) The claims of the respective patents are directed to the characteristics of certain semiconductor packages and the substrate in such packages, as well as to methods of fabricating semiconductor packages. (D.I. 1, ex. A-D)2

C. Discovery Requests-at-Issue

On May 18, 2012, Plaintiff served its First Set of Interrogatories (Nos. 1-6) (the “Interrogatories”) and its First Set of Requests for Production of Documents, Electronically Stored Information, and Things (Nos. 1-102) (the “Document Requests”) on Defendant. (D.I. 32, ex. B-C) Both the Interrogatories and the Document Requests sought discovery with respect to certain of Defendant’s products, which Plaintiff referred to throughout the Interrogatories and Document Requests as ‘Your Products.” The term ‘Your Products” was defined by Plaintiff to mean:

[A]ll of your electronic components, packages, or assemblies (including package-on-paekage modules and assemblies) made, used, sold, or offered for sale in the United States, or imported into the United States, since May 23, 2005, that are packaged in a ball grid array (“BGA”) package, or which have a substrate containing a voltage supply plane, as well as any products, refer-[276]*276enee designs, modules, or circuit boards using any of these components or designed to be used with any of these components.

(D.I. 32, ex. C at 3) The specific discovery requests at issue in Plaintiffs Motion to Compel, each of which include reference to the “Your Products” term, are Interrogatories Nos. 1 and 2 and Document Requests Nos. 41-42, 44, 46-47, 49, 65-67, 72, and 76.3 (D.I. 32 at 1, 3)

In its responses to the Interrogatories and Document Requests, served on June 18, 2012, Defendant objected to the definition of “Your Products” generally as “overly broad, unduly burdensome, oppressive, and/or irrelevant to the subject matter of [the] action.” (D.I. 32, ex. D at 4; id., ex. E at 4-5) Defendant further objected to this term “to the extent it purports to include within the scope of discovery products which have not been accused of infringement.” (Id.) To the extent Defendant indicated that it would respond substantively to the Interrogatories and Document Requests, it agreed to do so only with regard to “products specifically accused of infringement.” (D.I. 32, ex. D at 7-8; id., ex. E)

Between June 19, 2012 and July 2, 2012, the parties exchanged several e-mails regarding the definition of “Your Products” and the adequacy of Defendant’s responses to the. Interrogatories and Document Requests. (D.I. 32, ex. H) In those exchanges, among other things, Defendant noted that this Court’s Default Standard for Discovery, Including Discovery of Electronically Stored Information (“ESI”) (the “Default Standard”) imposes a burden on Plaintiff to specifically identify Defendant’s accused products within 30 days after the Rule 16 Conference, which in turn triggers a requirement that Defendant produce core technical documents regarding those products within the next 30 days. (Id. at 1-3) Defendant argued that these requirements underscored that, pursuant to the Default Standard, a defendant is not required to produce documents regarding a product unless that product has been specifically accused of infringement by a plaintiff (Id.) Also in these exchanges, Plaintiff proposed a number of potential compromises regarding the dispute, including an offer to narrow the definition of “Your Products,” and by asking whether Defendant would agree to produce “(1) schematics for each chip matching the Tour Products’ definition and/or (2) samples of each such product (parties to share cost)” in lieu of the information requested in the Interrogatories and Document Requests. (Id.)

Also on July 2, 2012, in accordance with Section 4(a) of the Default Standard, Plaintiff furnished Defendant with its Preliminary Identification of Accused Renesas Products and Asserted Patents. (D.I. 32, ex. A) Based on its investigation of certain of Defendant’s products that it had commercially obtained, Plaintiff asserted that the patents-in-suit had been infringed by Defendant’s manufacture, use, sale, offer for sale and/or importation of five specific semiconductor packages.4 (Id.; [277]*277D.I.

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287 F.R.D. 273, 84 Fed. R. Serv. 3d 115, 2012 WL 6042605, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 178357, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/invensas-corp-v-renesas-electronics-corp-ded-2012.