Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_06-cv-01066/USCOURTS-cand-4_06-cv-01066-29/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 35:145 Patent Infringement

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

MEDTRONIC VASCULAR, INC., et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

ABBOTT CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEMS,

INC., et al.,

Defendants.

___________________________________/

No. C-06-1066 PHJ (EMC)

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS’

MOTION TO DE-DESIGNATE

DOCUMENTS AND RELATED

TESTIMONY

(Docket Nos. 208, 220)

Defendants have filed a motion to de-designate three documents and related testimony which

Plaintiff Evysio Medical Devices, ULC designated as “Confidential” under the stipulated protective

order in this matter. Having considered the parties’ briefs and accompanying submissions, as well

as the oral argument of counsel, the Court hereby GRANTS the motion to de-designate. 

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff filed a patent infringement action against Defendants on February 15, 2006. See

Docket No. 1. Thereafter, in order to facilitate discovery, the parties submitted a stipulated

protective order to the trial judge, which was signed on December 11, 2006. See Docket No. 106. 

Under this protective order, the parties are allowed to designate discovery materials containing trade

secrets or pending patent application materials as “Highly Confidential” or “Outside Counsel Eyes

Only.” Discovery materials which contain “non-public, confidential or proprietary information,

whether personal or business-related” may be designated as “Confidential Information.” 

During the course of discovery, Defendants received three documents from Plaintiff, which

were designated “Highly Confidential” pursuant to the protective order. Defendants did not believe

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that these documents contained confidential information. Attempts by the parties to meet and confer

on the proper designation of the documents were unsuccessful. Plaintiff agreed to change the

designation of the documents to “Confidential” but would not agree to completely de-designate

because the documents at issue -- i.e., letters between Plaintiff and its customers -- were “non-public

business communications” defined as “Confidential Information” under the terms of the stipulated

protective order.

II. DISCUSSION

In its opposition, Plaintiff focuses on the fact that the parties agreed in the stipulated

protective order that nonpublic business communications could be designated “Confidential

Information.” However, the larger question here is whether a stipulated blanket protective order

allows a party to keep specific documents from public view without satisfying the standard of good

cause under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c). See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(c) (providing that a court

“may make any order which justice requires to protect a party or person from annoyance,

embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense). Foltz v. State Farm Mutual Automobile

Insurance Co., 331 F.3d 1122, 1131 (9th Cir. 2003), is controlling on this issue.

In Foltz, the parties requested and the district court issued a very broad, blanket protective

order that prevented the parties from disclosing any information produced in discovery, without a

prior showing of good cause for any specific document. See id. The Ninth Circuit found that,

although the issuance of such an order was understandable given the burden that document-bydocument review would entail, that did not eliminate the good cause requirement of Rule 26(c). See

id. When faced with a request to disclose documents, Rule 26(c) standards, not the terms of a

blanket protective order, governs. The party asserting confidentiality must make a particular

showing for each document at issue that specific prejudice or harm will arise from its disclosure. 

See id.

Similar to Foltz, Plaintiff and Defendants herein stipulated to a blanket protective order

broader than the Rule 26(c)’s standard of good cause. The protective order does not allow all

discovery materials to fall under the stipulated protective order, as in Foltz, but does allow

documents be designated as confidential simply because they are non-public. Foltz controls. Upon

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challenge, the designating party must justify each document by showing good cause and demonstrate

that specific prejudice or harm will result if the three documents (or related testimony) are disclosed.

Plaintiff contends that Foltz is distinguishable because, in that case, a new party challenged

the confidentiality of the materials protected by the protective order; in contrast, here, Defendants

agreed to the terms of the protective order and now are trying to back out of the agreement. 

However, there is nothing in Foltz or its reasoning which suggests that its holding is limited to cases

in which a new party, rather than original party to the protective order, brings the challenge. It

makes little logical sense that a new party or non-party to the litigation could compel disclosure of a

document free of the protective order, where an original party could not. Moreover, the courts have

viewed with disfavor blanket protective orders untethered to the good cause standard. See, e.g.,

Walcker v. SN Commercial, LLC, No. CV-06-009-RHW, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63781, at *8 (E.D.

Wash. Sept. 7, 2006) (denying order encompassing “any information that pertained to the parties’

business or personal affairs that was not generally or publicly known and that the parties would not

normally reveal to third parties” for lack of good cause); City of Rialto v. United States Dept. of

Defense, No. EDCV 04-00079-VAP (SSx), 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25181, at *9 (C.D. Cal. May 17,

2005) (rejecting proposed protective order unless specific harm or resulting prejudice was identified

for each document or category of documents the parties sought to protect).

In the case at bar, Plaintiff has failed to show good cause for keeping the three documents

confidential with “specific demonstrations of fact, supported where possible by affidavits and

concrete examples, rather than broad, conclusory allegations of harm.” Charles O. Bradley Trust v.

Zenith Capital LLC, No. C-04-2239 JSW (EMC), 2006 U.S. Dist LEXIS 21671 at *5 (N.D. Cal.

Mar. 24, 2006). Plaintiff’s general assertion that disclosure of business communications would chill

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business relations is not a sufficient allegation of specific harm. This general blanket argument

would apply to all non-public communications. Plaintiff has not demonstrated any specific harm

will ensue from disclosure of the documents at issue.

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, the Court GRANTS Defendants’ motion to de-designate. 

This order disposes of Docket Nos. 208 and 220.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: November 20, 2007

_________________________ EDWARD M. CHEN

United States Magistrate Judge

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