Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_12-cv-03972/USCOURTS-cand-4_12-cv-03972-5/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 35:271 Patent Infringement

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Case Nos.: 5:12-cv-03970, -03971, -03972-RMW-PSG

ORDER GRANTING-IN-PART SRA’S MOTION TO CLARIFY OR MODIFY PROTECTIVE 

ORDER

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

SAN JOSE DIVISION

SOFTWARE RIGHTS ARCHIVE, LLC,

 Plaintiff,

v. 

FACEBOOK, INC., 

 Defendant. 

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Case No. 5:12-cv-03970-RMW-PSG

Case No. 5:12-cv-03971-RMW-PSG

Case No. 5:12-cv-03972-RMW-PSG

ORDER GRANTING-IN-PART SRA’S 

MOTION TO CLARIFY OR MODIFY 

PROTECTIVE ORDER

(Re: Docket No. 86, 5:12-cv-03970) 

(Re: Docket No. 61, 5:12-cv-03971) 

(Re: Docket No. 54, 5:12-cv-03972) 

SOFTWARE RIGHTS ARCHIVE, LLC, 

 Plaintiff,

v. 

LINKEDIN CORPORATION, 

 Defendant.

SOFTWARE RIGHTS ARCHIVE, LLC, 

 Plaintiff,

v. 

TWITTER, INC., 

 Defendant.

 

Case 4:12-cv-03972-HSG Document 65 Filed 01/13/14 Page 1 of 7
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Case Nos.: 5:12-cv-03970, -03971, -03972-RMW-PSG

ORDER GRANTING-IN-PART SRA’S MOTION TO CLARIFY OR MODIFY PROTECTIVE 

ORDER

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United States District Court

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Before the court is Plaintiff Software Rights Archive, LLC’s motion to clarify or modify 

the protective order in this case so that SRA’s litigation counsel may participate in the ongoing 

inter partes review (“IPR”) proceedings initiated by Defendants Facebook, Inc., LinkedIn 

Corporation, and Twitter, Inc. Defendants oppose SRA’s motion. The parties appeared for a 

hearing last week. After considering their respective arguments, the court GRANTS-IN-PARTS 

SRA’s motion. 

I. BACKGROUND

SRA filed three suits in July 2012 accusing Defendants of infringing three U.S. patents. 1

 

Each of these patents has expired. On July 30, 2013 Defendants filed four IPR petitions with the 

United States Patent and Trademark Office. Defendants successfully moved this court to stay the 

case while the IPR proceeded, in part, to streamline invalidity arguments.2

II. LEGAL STANDARDS

Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c)(1) places the burden of seeking any protective order on the party from 

whom discovery is sought, a tenet the Ninth Circuit underscored when it held that a party “from 

whom discovery is sought bears the burden, for each particular document it seeks to protect, of 

showing that specific prejudice or harm will result if no protective order is granted.”3 

Nevertheless, this district is authorized under Fed. R. Civ. P. 83 to establish a presumption of a 

so-called “prosecution bar” that extends to reexamination or review proceedings, an authority 

exercised by the combination of Section 6 of the district’s model protective order and 

 

1

 The patents in suit are: U.S. Patent No. 5,544,352; U.S. Patent No. 5,832,494; and U.S. Patent 

No. 6,233, 571. See Docket No. 1 in Case No.: 5:12-cv-03970-RMW-PSG. Unless otherwise 

indicated all citations to the docket in this case will refer to Case No.: 5:12-cv-03970-RMW-PSG.

2 See Docket No. 65 (motion to stay pending IPR); Docket No. 82 (order staying case). 

3 See Foltz v. State Farm Mut. Auto Ins. Co., 331 F.3d 1122, 1130 (9th Cir. 2003). 

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ORDER GRANTING-IN-PART SRA’S MOTION TO CLARIFY OR MODIFY PROTECTIVE 

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Patent L.R. 2-2.4 Under such circumstances, the burden is appropriately shifted to the patentee to 

establish that an exemption from the bar is appropriate.5 In particular, once “a patent prosecution 

bar is imposed” the “burden is reversed and the party seeking an exemption from a patent 

prosecution bar must show on a counsel-by-counsel basis: ‘(1) that counsel’s representation of the 

client in matters before the PTO does not and is not likely to implicate competitive decisionmaking 

related to the subject matter of the litigation so as to give rise to a risk of inadvertent use of 

confidential information learned in litigation, and (2) that the potential injury to the moving party 

from restrictions imposed on its choice of litigation and prosecution counsel outweighs the 

potential injury to the opposing party caused by such inadvertent use.’”6

Any prosecution bar should serve only to mitigate the risk of inadvertent use of proprietary 

information by a patentee, not to unduly burden a patentee with additional expense. While other 

courts have rejected any application of the prosecution bar to reexamination or review proceedings 

because neither permits the broadening of patent claims,7 this court has recognized that claims may 

still be restructured in these proceedings in a way that would undoubtedly benefit from access to an 

 

4 See http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/stipprotectorder. 

5 Cf. Kelora Sys., LLC v. Target Corp., Case No. 4:11-01548 CW (LB), 2011 WL 6000759, at *7 

(N.D. Cal. Aug. 29, 2011) (holding “the model protective order as setting forth presumptively 

reasonable conditions regarding the treatment of highly confidential information”). 

6 EPL Holdings, LLC v. Apple Inc., Case No.: 3:12-cv-04306-JST-JSC, 2013 WL 2181584, at *2 

(N.D. Cal. May 20, 2013) (quoting In re Deutsche Bank Trust Co. Americas, 605 F.3d 1373, 1381 

(Fed. Cir. 2010)). 

7 See, e.g., Pall Corp. v. Entegris, Inc., 655 F. Supp. 2d 169, 173 (E.D.N.Y. 2008) (noting that 

“unlike prosecution of an initial patent application, the Patent Act expressly curtails the scope of 

reexamination, prohibiting any claim amendment that would enlarge the scope of the initial 

patent”); see also Mirror Worlds, LLC v. Apple, Inc., Case No. 08-88, 2009 WL 2461808, at *2 

(E.D. Tex. Aug. 11, 2009) (noting that claims “can only be narrowed during reexamination; they 

cannot be broadened” and therefore concluding that “the risk of harm” to the defendant to be 

“greatly limited”); Document Generation Corp. v. Allscripts, Case No. 08-479, 2009 WL 1766096, 

at *2 (E.D. Tex. June 23, 2009) (stating that because “the reexamination process prohibits claim 

amendments that would enlarge the scope of the initial patent, Defendants’ fears of expanded claim 

scope are largely misplaced”).

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alleged infringer’s proprietary information.8 With these standards in mind, the court turns to the 

dispute at hand. 

III. DISCUSSION

A. The Model Protective Order’s Applies to IPR Proceedings of Expired Patents

SRA first argues that because the plain language of the model order’s prosecution bar 

applicable in this litigation does not expressly include IPR proceedings it, in fact, does not cover 

IPR proceedings. While SRA concedes that as in traditional prosecution “IPR of unexpired patents 

may also involve claim drafting or amendment,”9 activities that are expressly barred, SRA points 

out that the IPR of expired patents statutorily cannot involve claim drafting or amending.10 SRA 

also points out that IPR proceedings are designed to resemble litigation; discovery,11 direct and 

cross-examination of witnesses,12 and motion practice all are available.13 SRA notes that its

litigation counsel would perform many of the same tasks in either setting, including preparing 

declarations, taking and defending depositions, and reviewing documents. 

 Defendants counter that the prosecution bar in the model protective order covers any patent 

prosecution before the PTO including “directly or indirectly drafting, amending, advising, or 

 

8 See Grobler v. Apple Inc., Case No.: 3:12-cv-01534-JST-PSG, 2013 WL 3359274, at *2 

(N.D. Cal. May 7, 2013); John v. Lattice Semiconductor Corp., Case No.: 5:12-cv-04384-PSG, at 

(N.D. Cal. May 7, 2013). 

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 Docket No. 86 at 12. 

10 See id. at 7 (citing 37 C.F.R. § 1.530(j) (“No enlargement of claim scope. No amendment may 

enlarge the scope of the claims of the patent or introduce new matter. No amendment may be 

proposed for entry in an expired patent. Moreover, no amendment, other than the cancellation of 

claims, will be incorporated into the patent by a certificate issued after the expiration of the 

patent.”).

11 See 37 C.F. R. § 42.51. 

12 See 37 C.F. R. § 42.53. 

13 See 37 C.F. R. § 42.20-25. 

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otherwise affecting the scope or maintenance of patent claims.”14 Defendants urge that 

representing “the patent owner in attempting to maintain patent claims in an IPR proceeding falls 

squarely within” the model order’s understanding of prosecution. In addition, Defendants note that 

case law cited by SRA confirms that the model order’s prosecution bar covers IPR proceedings.15 

Defendants also contend the adversarial posture of IPR proceedings is irrelevant – prosecution 

under the model order is still prosecution. 

 Even though the case before the court is distinguishable from the situation Judge Illston 

faced in Ariosa – the patent term has expired16 – the result is the same. Quite clearly, IPR 

proceedings carry the potential to modify – directly or indirectly – the scope or maintenance of 

patent claims. Conduct “taken in, or support of, the pending IPR proceedings could affect the 

scope or maintenance of the claims” in SRA’s patent.17 At the extreme, challenged patent claims 

could be fully invalidated based on the prior art. Even though SRA’s litigation counsel may not 

use confidential information to expand the scope of the claims, it could use such information to 

prophylactically cede claim scope through limiting arguments. Especially in light of SRA’s 

concession at the hearing that IPR constitutes prosecution, the court confirms that the model 

order’s prosecution bar covers IPR proceedings.

 

14 Docket No. 87-1, Ex. 1. at 12. 

15 See Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., Case No.: 3:11-cv-06391-SI, at 2 

(N.D. Cal. June 11, 2013) (finding “that the patent prosecution bar imposed in these cases covers 

‘prosecution’ in the newly available Inter Partes Review (IRP) proceedings before the Patent Trial 

and Appeals Board (PTAB). ‘Prosecution,’ as defined in the patent prosecution bar, is broad and 

includes any conduct that could ‘directly or indirectly’ affect the scope or maintenance of patent 

claims in proceedings before the Patent and Trademark Office.”).

16 By law, the scope of patent claims may not be expanded. See supra note 10. 

17 Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., Case No.: 3:11-cv-06391-SI, at 2 

(N.D. Cal. June 11, 2013). 

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B. The Model Order Should Be Modified in this Case

With the issue of whether the prosecution bar lodged within the model order extends to 

IPR proceedings resolved, the court turns to the next question at hand: should the model order 

nevertheless be modified to permit SRA’s litigation counsel a limited role in the proceedings? On 

this issue, the Federal Circuit’s guidance in Deutsche Bank is controlling. First, the court considers 

whether competitive decisionmaking is sufficiently implicated giving rise to an unacceptable risk 

of inadvertent use of confidential information learned in litigation. Second, the court balances the 

hardships faced by each party.18

In Deutsche Bank the court identified a spectrum of circumstances that a litigation attorney 

and therefore the court might confront in considering whether a prosecution bar should bar an 

attorney from participating in prosecution before the PTO.19 In each circumstance, however, the 

key issue is the risk that confidential information might influence competitive decisionmaking is 

key. Here, the threat that competitive decisionmaking would be implicated is clearly much reduced 

because SRA’s litigation attorneys cannot modify the claim language given that the patents have 

already expired.20 As the court previously acknowledged, Defendants are right that claim scope 

could still be affected by the record created by counsel’s arguments. But as a practical matter that 

is a risk they bear just as much in the proceedings in this court and yet, however persuasive 

arguments may be in district court litigation, not even Defendants would suggest barring litigation 

counsel from making the same arguments here.

 

18 See supra note 6. 

19 Deutsche Bank, 605 F.3d at 1379 (finding that because “patent prosecution is not a 

one-dimensional endeavor and can encompass a range of activities,” sweeping generalizations

about the breadth of a prosecution bar are unwarranted and case-by-case analyses are preferred).

20 See supra note 10. 

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