Silicon Genesis Corporation v. EV Group E.Thallner GmbH

• Court: District Court, N.D. California
• Decided: March 22, 2023
• Docket: 3:22-cv-04986
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 SILICON GENESIS CORPORATION, Case No. 22-cv-04986-JSC

8 Plaintiff, ORDER RE: MOTION FOR 9 v. PROTECTIVE ORDER

10 EV GROUP E.THALLNER GMBH, Re: Dkt. No. 36 Defendant. 11

12 13 Before the Court is Defendant’s motion for a protective order. (Dkt. No. 36.)1 Defendant 14 seeks to impose a slightly modified version of the Northern District’s Model Protective Order for 15 Litigation Involving Patents, Highly Sensitive Confidential Information and/or Trade Secrets, 16 which allows two tiers of designation: Confidential and Highly Confidential – Attorneys’ Eyes 17 Only (“AEO”).2 Plaintiff seeks the District’s Protective Order for Standard Litigation, which 18 allows only a Confidential designation. To facilitate the mediation set for April 6, 2023, the Court 19 imposed the former to govern this case as an interim measure. (Dkt. No. 41.) 20 After carefully considering the parties’ briefing, the Court concludes oral argument is 21 unnecessary, see N.D. Cal. Civ. L.R. 7-1(b), VACATES the March 30, 2023 hearing, and 22 DENIES the motion. Defendant has not established good cause for an AEO-level designation. 23 See San Jose Mercury News, Inc. v. U.S. Dist. Ct.-N. Dist. (San Jose), 187 F.3d 1096, 1103 (9th 24 Cir. 1999); Van v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., No. C 08-5296 PSG, 2011 WL 62499, at *2 (N.D. Cal. 25 Jan. 7, 2011) (“[To obtain a] blanket protective order[] . . . , a party must make some threshold 26 1 Record citations are to material in the Electronic Case File (“ECF”); pinpoint citations are to the 27 ECF-generated page numbers at the top of the documents. 1 showing of good cause to believe that discovery will involve confidential or protected 2 information. This may be done on a generalized as opposed to a document-by-document basis.”). 3 Defendant has not explained why its sales data and financial statements should be limited to AEO 4 and why the standard confidentiality designation, which would require Plaintiff’s employees to 5 sign the Acknowledgement and Agreement to Be Bound, is insufficient. See Yith v. Nielsen, No. 6 114-CV-01875-LJO-SKO, 2019 WL 2567290, at *7–9 (E.D. Cal. June 21, 2019) (finding good 7 cause for protective order as to non-parties’ passport numbers, Social Security numbers, and dates 8 of birth, “which could harm law enforcement efforts and agency determinations in immigration 9 enforcement,” but no good cause for “treating certain information as [AEO] as opposed to simply 10 ‘Confidential’”). It has not demonstrated that patents or trade secrets are at issue, nor that Plaintiff 11 is a competitor. Thus, the cases upon which it relies are inapposite. See, e.g., Brown Bag 12 Software v. Symantec Corp., 960 F.2d 1465 (9th Cir. 1992) (parties were competitors); Nutratech, 13 Inc. v. Syntech (SSPF) Int’l, Inc., 242 F.R.D. 552, 555 (C.D. Cal. 2007) (parties sold the same 14 product). The parties’ underlying license agreement, which allows Plaintiff to audit Defendant’s 15 financial records through an accounting firm and prohibits the firm from disclosing confidential 16 information to Plaintiff, does not establish good cause to limit certain financial information to 17 Plaintiff’s outside counsel as the contractual provision does not purport to govern litigation 18 between the parties. 19 Accordingly, Defendant’s motion is denied. On or before March 28, 2023, the parties shall 20 file a stipulated Protective Order for Standard Litigation, with the declaration required by this 21 Court’s standing order,3 or a joint discovery dispute letter brief in the event a stipulation cannot be 22 reached. The March 23, 2023 further case management conference will be held as scheduled. 23 This Order disposes of Docket No. 36. 24 // 25 // 26

27 3 See Civil Standing Order for District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, U.S. District Court for the 1 IT IS SO ORDERED. 2 Dated: March 22, 2023 3 4 ne JAZQUELINE SCOTT CORLE 5 United States District Judge 6 7 8 9 10 11 a 12

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