Reald Spark, LLC v. Microsoft Corporation

W.D. Washington

Reald Spark, LLC v. Microsoft Corporation

District Court, W.D. Washington·Decided April 27, 2023·No. 2:22-cv-00942·Unknown

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON REALD SPARK LLC, CASE NO. 2:22-cv-00942-TL Plaintiff, ORDER DENYING v. MOTIONS TO SEAL MICROSOFT CORPORATION, Defendant.

Pending before this Court are three motions to seal (Dkt. Nos. 47, 52, and 56). Having considered the relevant record and finding oral argument unnecessary, see LCR 7(b)(4), these motions are DENIED for the reasons set forth below. All three motions involve discovery responses provided by the parties and attached as exhibits to the briefing related to Defendant Microsoft Corporation’s (“Microsoft”) Motion to Compel Discovery Response (Dkt. No. 46) as well as references to the material contained in the briefing. A Stipulated Protective Order is in place affording limited protection against public disclosure of certain designated confidential material. Dkt. No. 36 ¶ 1. However, by its own terms, the protective order does not “presumptively entitle parties to file confidential material or information under seal.” Id. Two of the motions (Dkt. Nos. 47 and 56) are brought by Microsoft solely because they

contain material designated by Plaintiff RealD Spark LLC (“RealD”) as confidential under the Protective Order in place in this case (Dkt. No. 36) or are alleged by RealD to contain trade secrets. See Dkt. No. 47 at 2; Dkt. No. 56 at 2. Microsoft’s first motion seeks to seal in their entirety RealD’s First Supplemental Objections and Responses to Microsoft’s First Set of Interrogatories (No. 1) (Dkt. No. 47-3) as well as RealD’s Objections and Responses to Microsoft’s First Set of Interrogatories (No. 1) (Dkt. No. 47-4). Microsoft’s second motion seeks to redact portions of its reply brief (Dkt. No. 58) as well as the Declaration of Andrew V. Devkar in Support of Defendant’s Reply in Support of Motion to Compel Discovery Response (Dkt. No. 58-1). RealD filed a motion to seal (Dkt. No. 52) that seeks to seal the entirety of Defendant’s Objections and Responses to Plaintiff’s First Set of Requests for Production to Microsoft (Nos.

1-66) (Dkt. No. 55). The public has a right to inspect and copy judicial records. Nixon v. Warner Commc’ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 597–98 (1978). Indeed, there is a “strong presumption in favor of access” to these records. Kamakana v. City & Cnty. of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1178 (9th Cir. 2006) (internal citations omitted). Requests to seal judicial records attached to a dispositive motion are held to a “compelling reasons” standard. Id. at 1179–80. However, non-dispositive materials that are “unrelated, or only tangentially related to the underlying cause of action” can be sealed if “‘good cause’ exists to protect this information . . . by balancing the needs for discovery against

the need for confidentiality.” Id. at 1179–80. One exception where a party only need satisfy the “good cause” standard is for “sealed materials attached to a discovery motion unrelated to the merits of a case.” Ctr. for Auto Safety v. Chrysler Grp., LLC, 809 F.3d 1092, 1097 (9th Cir. 2016). See also Phillips ex rel. Ests. of Byrd v. Gen. Motors Corp., 307 F.3d 1206, 1213 (9th Cir. 2002) (“when a party attaches a sealed discovery document to a nondispositive motion, the usual

presumption of the public's right of access is rebutted”); Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c) (“The court may, for good cause, issue an order to protect a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense. . .”). Given that all three of the instant motions to seal are connected to a discovery motion, the Court reviews them for a showing of “good cause.” In its motions to seal, Microsoft takes no position as to whether the interrogatory propounded to RealD and RealD’s responses satisfy the “compelling reasons” standards for sealing documents. Dkt. No. 47 at 2; Dkt. No. 56 at 2. With regard to RealD’s requests for production issued to Microsoft and Microsoft’s response, the parties agreed that it was properly filed under seal. Dkt. No. 52 at 2. RealD asserts in its motion that the information attached to its motion as well as Microsoft’s motion to compel should be sealed under Local Civil Rule

5(g)(3)(B) because: (i) revealing this information publicly risks public disclosure of RealD’s trade secrets, creating a strong private interest in the relief sought; (ii) if this information if disclosed, RealD will suffer further injuries of trade secret misappropriation, the exact injury RealD is seeking to cure through this litigation; and (iii) this is the least restrictive means of protecting RealD’s interest because RealD’s redactions are as minimal as possible while still providing full protection for those secrets Dkt. No. 52 at 3. RealD did not respond to Microsoft’s motion to seal its reply and supporting declaration (Dkt. No. 56) but the redactions in those papers repeat language that RealD requests be sealed in the first two motions to seal. Even under the lower “good cause” standard for non-dispositive motions, the Parties do not carry their burden to justify the sealing of the information at issue. The discovery requests themselves do not reveal any trade secrets. Beginning with Defendant’s Objections and Responses to Plaintiff’s First Set of Requests for Production to Microsoft (Nos. 1-66) that are

attached to Plaintiff’s motion to seal (Dkt. No. 55), the requests made are typical of what one would expect in a case such as this and are phrased without referencing any specifics as to the product at issue. The responses mostly assert the typical objections and run-of-the-mill promise to produce non-privileged and/or responsive documents that are often made at the early stages of discovery. The Court sees no trade secrets whatsoever in Microsoft’s responses to RealD’s requests for production. Microsoft’s single interrogatory asks RealD to describe with particularity the trade secrets it contends Microsoft misappropriated and quotes from the publicly-filed Complaint. RealD’s original and supplemental responses assert some general objections, basically repeat the allegations from the Complaint, and provide the location of some of the information within the

discovery it provided in its supplemental response. See Dkt. Nos. 47-3, 47-4. It appears that most of the material redacted from the briefs themselves and the Devkar declaration are related to the descriptions of certain categories of trade secrets at issue. One major problem with redacting this information is that it is information that RealD openly stated in their publicly-filed complaint. In the Complaint, RealD alleges: RealD shared confidential information about SocialEyes with Microsoft including, without limitation, the following high-level groups of trade secrets:

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