Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_23-cv-01068/USCOURTS-azd-2_23-cv-01068-2/pdf.json

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

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WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

RB Distribution Incorporated, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v. 

Skyward Automotive Products LLC, et al.,

Defendants.

No. CV-23-01068-PHX-KML

ORDER 

In this patent case related to auto engine oil filter housings, the parties agree a 

protective order should issue to protect confidential and proprietary information disclosed 

during the discovery process. But plaintiffs RB Distribution, Inc., and Dorman Products, 

Inc., (collectively “Dorman”) believe the protective order should also include a 

“prosecution bar” and defendant Skyward Automative Products, LLC, opposes including 

such a provision.1 A “prosecution bar” provision would prevent certain attorneys at the 

same firms representing the parties here from also prosecuting patent claims for very 

similar technology on that party’s behalf. Because Dorman has shown good cause to 

include a prosecution bar, its motion for entry of a protective order (Doc. 81) is granted.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

On June 9, 2023, Dorman filed a complaint asserting three counts of patent 

infringement related to certain oil filter housings that are used as replacement parts in auto 

1 Defendant Ningbo Skyward Industrial Co. Ltd. is represented by the same counsel as 

Skyward (Docs. 28 at 2, 65 at 2), but the opposition only describes Skyward as opposing 

the motion. (Doc. 82 at 1.) The same analysis would apply to Ningbo if it does in fact also 

oppose the motion.

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engines. (Doc. 1.) Skyward appeared through counsel in this court the next month. (Doc. 

15.) Almost seven months later, Skyward filed its first-ever patent application “as an 

outgrowth of its efforts to defend itself in this case[.]” (Doc. 82 at 2.) Skyward’s patent 

prosecution efforts, which now also include a pending continuation application filed in 

August 2024 that claims priority to the original application, are being conducted by one of 

the same firms representing it here. See U.S. Patent No. 12,078,090 (filed Feb. 29, 2024) 

(issued Aug. 14, 2024); https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/applications/18591849 (last visited 

Jan. 21, 2025). Attorney J. Matthew Buchanan, who signed Skyward’s opposition in this 

court, is listed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) as one of nineteen 

attorneys from MacMillan Sobanski & Todd, LLC (“MST”) authorized to prosecute 

Skyward’s application. See Application No. 18/591,849, USPTO, 

https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/applications/18591849/attorney?application= (last visited 

Jan. 21, 2025). So are Joseph W. Tucker and Joshua S. Higgins, who both also appear on 

Skyward’s behalf in this court. Id. The other sixteen MST attorneys listed do not represent 

Skyward here. Id.

II. Legal Standard

In general, a patent prosecution bar is a provision added to a protective order that 

prevents lawyers who, through litigation, gain access to certain types of highly-confidential 

technical information from using that information to write patent claims. In re Deutsche 

Bank Tr. Co. Americas, 605 F.3d 1373, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2010). Prosecution bars operate by 

segregating the lawyers litigating a patent case on behalf of a particular client from those 

prosecuting patent claims on that same client’s behalf. Id. at 1379. Such a separation may 

be necessary in certain patent cases where, despite “even the most rigorous efforts” of an

attorney to preserve confidentiality in compliance with a standard protective order, there is 

a risk of “inadvertent compromise” because it is difficult to un-learn or compartmentalize 

technical information across closely-related contexts. Id. Prosecution bars represent a “less

drastic alternative” to disqualifying legal personnel entirely. Applied Signal Tech., Inc. v. 

Emerging Mkts. Commc’ns, Inc., No. C-09-02180 SBA (DMR), 2011 WL 197811, at *1 

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(N.D. Cal. Jan. 20, 2011).

Like for any protective order, the party seeking the prosecution bar bears the burden 

of establishing good cause for its issuance. Deutsche Bank, 605 F.3d at 1378. In the patent 

context, the movant must meet a threshold burden of showing an “unacceptable risk of 

inadvertent disclosure” and that the prosecution bar is reasonably tailored to reflect that 

risk. Id. at 1379, 1381. The tailoring question turns on whether “the information designated 

to trigger the bar, the scope of activities prohibited by the bar, the duration of the bar, and 

the subject matter covered by the bar” all “reasonably reflect the risk presented by the 

disclosure of proprietary competitive information.” Id. at 1381; Applied Signal Tech., 2011 

WL 197811, at *2. 

When those showings are made, the party seeking an exemption from the bar must 

then show “on a counsel-by-counsel basis” that the attorney’s patent-prosecution 

representation “does not and is not likely to implicate competitive decisionmaking,”

defined as activities that “involve counsel’s advice and participation in any or all of the 

client’s decisions (pricing, product design, etc.) made in light of similar or corresponding 

information about a competitor.” Deutsche Bank, 605 F.3d at 1378, 1381 (simplified). 

Not all patent prosecution activities implicate competitive decisionmaking. Id. at 

1378–79. Attorneys who report office actions, file ancillary paperwork, staff projects, or 

coordinate client meetings may not be competitive decisionmakers. Id. at 1379–80. But for

those attorneys who do play a “significant role in crafting the content of patent applications 

or advising clients on the direction to take their portfolios”—for example, by “obtaining 

disclosure materials for new inventions and inventions under development, . . . making 

strategic decisions on the type and scope of patent protection that might be available or 

worth pursuing” or by “writing, reviewing, or approving new applications” or “strategically 

amending” claim scope during a prosecution—competitive decisionmaking may be a 

“regular part of their representation[.]” Id. at 1380.

Based on this information, the court must then balance the potential injury to the 

non-moving party’s client in restricting its choice of counsel against the potential injury to 

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the movant that would be caused by inadvertent use of the confidential information. Id.; 

Applied Signal Tech., 2011 WL 197811, at *4. Only when the latter outweighs the former 

should a patent prosecution bar issue. Deutsche Bank, 605 F.3d at 1381; Applied Signal 

Tech., 2011 WL 197811, at *5. 

III. Analysis

To start, Dorman has shown good cause for including the prosecution bar provisions 

in the protective order because there is a significant risk of inadvertent disclosure. Both 

sides will need to disclose highly-confidential technical information related to the oil filter 

housings at issue here to fully litigate this patent case. (See Doc. 81 at 5–10.) Skyward 

began prosecuting its first patent, which also concerns oil filter housings, as “a result of 

design-around efforts that resulted from this lawsuit.” (Doc. 82 at 9; see also Doc. 82 at 2 

(describing patent application “as an outgrowth of its efforts to defend itself in this case”).) 

Skyward’s patent prosecution for a very similar product stemming from “design-around 

efforts” growing out of this litigation is related closely enough to the patents-in-suit to 

present a substantial risk of inadvertent disclosure despite any lawyer’s best efforts to keep 

the information segregated. Cf. NeXedge, LLC v. Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., 820 F. 

Supp. 2d 1040, 1044 (D. Ariz. 2011) (declining to issue prosecution bar where movant was 

also the party who initiated the patent prosecution and did so after the litigation began).

That Skyward’s attorneys are involved in a pending application at the exact same time they 

are litigating this case only adds to the risk. 

Dorman has also narrowed the information that would trigger the bar to that relevant 

to Skyward’s preparation and prosecution of patent applications. The prosecution bar here 

would only apply to information designated as “highly confidential information –

technical,” defined as that which “in the good-faith belief of [the] party and its Counsel” 

contains or reflects “technical information that is confidential, proprietary, commercially 

valuable, or sensitive in nature and capable of being used for the preparation or prosecution 

of a patent application dealing with such subject matter[.]” (Doc. 81-2 at 4.) Unlike 

financial data or business information, this type of highly-confidential technical 

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information “is clearly relevant to a patent application and thus may pose a heightened risk 

of inadvertent disclosure.” Applied Signal Tech., 2011 WL 197811, at *2. And in requiring 

that the triggering information be capable of being used for the preparation or prosecution 

of patent applications, the prosecution bar provision self-imposes an exact match for 

relevance.

The scope of patent prosecution activities covered by the bar, duration, and covered 

subject matter are also appropriately narrow. The prosecution bar provision is limited to 

patent prosecution activity related to “technologies for adaptors for connecting oil filters 

and oil coolers to an engine in an automobile, including any patent applications in the 

family of the patents-in-suit[.]” (Doc. 81-2 at 7.) “Prosecution activity” is defined here 

more narrowly than in other cases that have approved prosecution bars, see, e.g., id. at *2 

n.1, by including only “drafting, editing, approving or amending [ ] patent claims or 

providing advice or counseling regarding the preparation of claims or amendment of 

claims” and exempting “activities relating to ex parte reexamination, inter partes review, 

covered business method review or any other post-grant review proceeding.” (Doc. 81-2 at 

8.) The provision also exempts activities like forwarding certain types of information to 

prosecuting attorneys “to assist a patent applicant in complying with its duty of candor” 

and lasts only during and for one year following the pendency of this action. (Doc. 81-2 at 

7–8.) These provisions are equal to or narrower than those approved by courts in the past. 

See id. at *3 & n.2 (discussing cases).

Dorman having made a threshold showing that a prosecution bar is warranted, the 

burden now shifts to Skyward to demonstrate “on a counsel-by-counsel basis” that each 

attorney’s pending patent-prosecution activities “do[ ] not and [are] not likely to implicate 

competitive decisionmaking.” Deutsche Bank, 605 F.3d at 1381; see also Applied Signal 

Tech., 2011 WL 197811, at * 3. Unfortunately, Skyward focused its only competitive 

decisionmaking arguments on a perceived lack of clarity on where the burden rests—

supported by case law that declined to decide the issue—rather than on providing a factual 

discussion of its attorney’s activities. (Doc. 82 at 9–10 (citing Champion Power Equip. Inc. 

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v. Firman Power Equip. Inc., No. CV-23-2371-PHX-DWL, 2024 WL 4524187, at *3 (D. 

Ariz. Oct. 18, 2024).) Given Deutsche Bank’s command that “the party seeking an 

exemption from a patent prosecution bar must” make certain showings “on a counsel-bycounsel basis[,]” 605 F.3d at 1381, the safer course would have been to provide meaningful 

facts and arguments as to each attorney’s competitive decisionmaking activities 

somewhere other than in a cursory footnote. (See Doc. 82 at 10 n.6.) Moreover, the 

statement in that footnote that “none of the MST attorneys who are potentially subject to 

the prosecution bar made any substantive arguments to the USPTO during prosecution of 

the ‘090 Patent” (Doc. 82 at 10 n.6) speaks neither to the pending application nor to the 

range of activities Deutsche Bank contemplated as constituting competitive 

decisionmaking besides “ma[king] . . . substantive arguments” in a patent prosecution, 

including strategic decisionmaking on the type of patent protection that might be worth 

pursuing or “writing, reviewing, or approving new applications.” Id. at 1380. Skyward 

faults Dorman for never asking what activities its attorneys were conducting, but it had far 

more ready access to the information and declined to provide it to the court. 

Finally, balancing the risk of injury Dorman demonstrated against Skyward’s 

arguments in favor of maintaining counsel of its choosing supports issuing a prosecution 

bar here. Skyward argues the bar will “severely limit Skyward’s access to its counsel of

choice” (Doc. 82 at 11) but by its terms, the prosecution bar does not apply to every 

attorney at MST (Doc. 81-2 at 7), sixteen others of which are listed as authorized to 

represent Skyward in prosecuting its patents. See Application No. 18/591,849, USPTO, 

https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/applications/18591849/attorney?application= (last visited 

Jan. 21, 2025). MST has only represented Skyward in one patent prosecution before the 

pending one, the duration of its relationship as Skyward’s patent-prosecution counsel is 

shorter than the lifespan of this litigation, and sixteen MST attorneys authorized to 

represent Skyward before the USPTO can still do so. If attorneys Buchanan, Tucker, and 

Higgins played so small a role in prosecuting Skyward’s first patent that they do not feel 

they engaged in competitive decisionmaking (see Doc. 82 at 10 n.6), the bar will hardly 

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affect Skyward’s choice of counsel at all. And it does not apply to Kenneth M. MotolenichSalas or the MotoSalas Law firm, also representing Skyward in this court. 

Dorman has shown a substantial risk of inadvertent compromise of its highlyconfidential technical information and that its proposed prosecution bar is reasonably 

tailored to reflect that risk. The balance of that risk of injury against Skyward’s right to 

counsel of its choosing weighs in favor of including the proposed prosecution bar in the 

protective order.

Accordingly,

IT IS ORDERED the Motion for Protective Order (Doc. 81) is GRANTED. The 

court will enter a signed copy of the protective order. 

Dated this 21st day of January, 2025.

Case 2:23-cv-01068-KML Document 89 Filed 01/21/25 Page 7 of 7