Key Insight: Subpoena seeking non-party’s software trade secrets enforced since trade secrets were relevant and necessary to patent suit and need for information outweighed possible injury to third party
Nature of Case: Patent infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Software trade secrets of third party
Key Insight: Court rejected insurers’ contentions that requested discovery was impossible insofar as they were grounded in the particular manner in which defendants maintain their records and computer systems; cost of discovery to be borne by insurers, but plaintiffs to pay costs of copying documents selected
Nature of Case: Declaratory judgment re insurance coverage
Electronic Data Involved: Insurance information from claim files
Key Insight: Court denied BATF’s motion to quash subpoenas since firearms tracing and licensing data maintained by BATF in federal databases was relevant and would be subject to a confidentiality order, and disclosure of the data was not precluded by appropriations statute or by law enforcement privilege
Nature of Case: City and families of shooting victims sued manufacturers, distributors and retailers of weapons
Electronic Data Involved: Database maintained by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
Key Insight: District judge upheld magistrate’s decision
Nature of Case: Concert promoters sued booking agencies and other promoters for discriminatory and anti-competitive practices
Electronic Data Involved: Email stored on backup tapes and hard drives
Key Insight: Court granted plaintiffs’ motion to compel defendants to respond to interrogatories and requests for admissions relating to database compiled by plaintiffs that contained factual information as property address, owners, purchase dates, dates of club membership, and religious affiliation
Nature of Case: Property owners sued yacht club alleging discriminatory practices
Electronic Data Involved: Database
Key Insight: Motion to compel production of computer printouts denied as to those constituting work product, granted as to those that were not prepared in anticipation of litigation
Nature of Case: Inmates sued for intentional discrimination in assignment of housing, programs, and administration of discipline
Electronic Data Involved: Computer printouts showing analysis of work locations and ethnicity of inmates
Key Insight: Where defendant resisted production of technical specifications in electronic form because material had already been produced at great expense in hard copy form, magistrate ruled that defendant must allow plaintiff’s expert to view material in electronic form at defendant’s facility during regular business hours under and such further terms and conditions as the parties agree
Nature of Case: Patent infringement
Electronic Data Involved: Technical specifications
Key Insight: Government required to submit a proposed protocol for searching the contents of seized computer hard drive and disks before it could conduct any search; court observed that government essentially sought “a license to roam through everything in the computer without limitation and without standards,” and that such a request failed to satisfy the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment
Nature of Case: Suspected tax fraud
Electronic Data Involved: Computer hard drive and computer disks
Key Insight: Insurer’s willful failure to comply with discovery orders and failure to produce database warranted evidentiary preclusion order amounting to entry of default judgment on agent’s counterclaim
Nature of Case: Insurer sued former general agent and agent counterclaimed for renewal commissions owed
Electronic Data Involved: Database containing raw data regarding policies sold by agents
Key Insight: Granting motion to compel contact list printed out from defendant’s contact management software program which was not timely included on defendant’s privilege log, court rejected “frivolous” argument that the contact list technically did not exist until it was printed: “For more than thirty years, Fed.R.Civ . P. 34(a) has included data stored on electronic media as being subject to a Rule 34 request. The fact that the data has not been printed out does not mean that the document does not exist. Indeed, if BH’s argument were meritorious, any party could avoid producing damaging documents through the simple expedient of storing them on electronic media and never printing them out.”
Nature of Case: SEC enforcement action
Electronic Data Involved: Email, spreadsheets and contact list
Copyright © 2022, K&L Gates LLP. All Rights Reserved.