Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_04-cv-05385/USCOURTS-cand-5_04-cv-05385-8/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 35:183 Patent Infringement

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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NOT FOR CITATION

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN JOSE DIVISION

AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES GENERAL IP PTE

LTD. and AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES ECBU IP

LTD.

Plaintiffs,

v.

ELAN MICROELECTRONICS CORP. and

ELAN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

GROUP,

Defendants. /

Case No.C04-05385 JW (HRL)

INTERIM ORDER

Re: Docket No. 102

In this patent infringement action, Avago Technologies General IP Pte. Ltd. and Avago

Technologies ECBU IP Ltd. allege that Elan Microelectronics Corp. ("Elan") and Elan

Information Technology Group ("EITG") infringe two patents involving optical navigation

technology used in computer mice. 

Defendants move to compel plaintiffs and plaintiffs' predecessor Agilent Technologies,

Inc. to produce documents and things in response to 29 of Elan's First Set of Requests for

Documents and Things and 20 of EITG's First Set of Requests for Documents and Things. 

These requests for production seek documents in typical patent discovery subject areas, such as

plaintiff's infringement analyses, foreign patent applications, license agreements, customer 

 *E-filed 10/3/06*

Case 5:04-cv-05385-JW Document 137 Filed 10/03/06 Page 1 of 4
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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28 1 The court encourages the parties to submit a single document, but will accept one for each

side so long as each uses the same format and order of presentation.

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communications, prior art, product marking, a prior lawsuit involving the same products, and

damages. Plaintiffs do not seriously dispute that the subject areas are appropriate for discovery,

but argue that the requests ask for too much. Defendants argue that plaintiffs offer too little. 

The parties did engage in a series of meet and confer sessions which resulted in a reported

"agreement" with respect to some of the requests for production in issue. However, even now

there is doubt in the court's mind that each side has actually "agreed" to the same thing, and

although plaintiff has made some production, there is much yet to do. 

The court observed from the parties' motion papers and, especially, from counsels'

responses to the court's questions at the hearing, that in many instances they are unable to

articulate what specific level of production is sufficient. In fact, sometimes they disagree about

whether they disagree!

In addition to the request for production subject areas in dispute, defendants seek

production of two specific documents: (1) a so-called draft patent application withheld on the

basis of attorney-client privilege, and (2) the "Chipworks report" withheld based on the work

product doctrine. The court is satisfied by the parties' meet and confer efforts on these two

documents and will rule on them after its in camera review of the draft patent application. 

Plaintiff will submit this forthwith to the court.

However, with respect to defendants' other requests, the court is not satisfied with the

meet and confer efforts. The parties need to do a better job of understanding the other side's

positions and legitimate needs and spend less time parsing words and quibbling about linguistic

nuances. Where they have reached agreement, they need to clearly tell the court exactly what

the agreement is.

Accordingly, no later than October 24 lead counsel for plaintiffs and for defendants will

meet in person and confer over this motion. No later than October 31 each counsel (Yitai Hu

for defendants, Morgan Chu for plaintiffs) will file a declaration attesting to the efforts. At the

same time, the parties will submit a supplemental report1

 describing specifically, and in detail,

Case 5:04-cv-05385-JW Document 137 Filed 10/03/06 Page 2 of 4
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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where they have reached agreement and where they have not. For every subject area still being

contested, each side will propose exact language the court should adopt when ruling on that

subject area. 

As for the documents plaintiff has already agreed to produce, production will be

completed by November 3. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: 10/3/06 ____________________________________

HOWARD R. LLOYD

UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

Case 5:04-cv-05385-JW Document 137 Filed 10/03/06 Page 3 of 4
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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THIS SHALL CERTIFY THAT A COPY OF THIS ORDER WILL BE SENT TO:

Morgan Chu mchu@irell.com 

Hsin-Yi Cindy Feng cfeng@akingump.com 

Alan J. Heinrich aheinrich@irell.com 

Yitai Hu yhu@akingump.com 

Sang Hui Michael Kim mkim@akingump.com, skapralov@akingump.com;

nthreadgill@akingump.com; btseng@akingump.com 

Samuel Kai Lu slu@irell.com 

Richard Elgar Lyon , III rlyon@irell.com, mwilliams@irell.com; jgordon@irell.com;

bwright@irell.com; rick.lyon@gmail.com 

Gary C. Ma gma@akingump.com 

David Craig McPhie dmcphie@irell.com, jrichter@irell.com 

Elizabeth H. Rader erader@akingump.com, skapralov@akingump.com;

btseng@akingump.com; nmarie@akingump.com 

Jonathan Philip Steinsapir jsteinsapir@irell.com 

* Counsel are responsible for providing copies of this order to co-counsel.

Dated: 10/3/06 /s/ JMM 

 Chambers of Magistrate Judge Lloyd

Case 5:04-cv-05385-JW Document 137 Filed 10/03/06 Page 4 of 4