Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_04-cv-05385/USCOURTS-cand-5_04-cv-05385-16/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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*E-filed 3/20/07*

NOT FOR CITATION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 RMW (HRL)

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND

DENYING IN PART PLAINTIFFS'

MOTION TO COMPEL

Re: Docket No. 161

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

Technologies ECBU IP Ltd. (collectively, "Avago" or "plaintiffs") allege that Elan

Microelectronics Corp. and Elan Information Technology Group (collectively, “Elan” or

"defendants") infringe two patents ("the '780 patent" and "the '804 patent;" collectively, "the

patents in suit") involving optical navigation technology used in computer mice. Defendants’

accused products are the "OM01" and "OM02" optical mouse sensors. 

There are two parts to this motion. First, there is the issue of waiver of attorney-client

privilege with respect to communications between Elan and its trial counsel, Akin Gump. 

Second, there is the question of several communications between Elan and third 

parties, and whether or not these are privileged under the common interest doctrine.

Case 5:04-cv-05385-JW Document 197 Filed 03/20/07 Page 1 of 6
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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1 Early in the discovery phase, the parties agreed that neither would log the

communications between the parties and their litigation counsel for dates after

the commencement of the lawsuit.

2

A. Trial Counsel Communications

First, Avago complains that Elan has refused to produce communications between Elan

and its litigation counsel, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP ("Akin Gump"), relating to

Elan's infringement or non-infringement of the patents in suit. As part of a defense to willful

patent infringement, Elan intends to rely on non-infringement opinions of counsel. Outside

counsel (Michael Bednarek of Shaw Pittman LLC) produced a non-infringement opinion

concerning the '804 patent on March 31, 2005, and one for the '780 patent on May 24, 2005. 

Avago argues that Elan has waived attorney-client privilege and work product immunity over

all communications to or from Elan relating to Elan's infringement or non-infringement of the

patents in suit, as well as any work product immunity over all documents that reference such

communications, no matter which law firm produced the communications or when.1

 Elan

contends that its waiver of privilege was far narrower than that described by Avago. 

Federal Circuit law applies to this discovery dispute, because “substantive patent law” is

implicated. Advanced Cardiovascular Systems, Inc. v. Medtronic, Inc., 265 F.3d 1294, 1307

(Fed. Cir. 2001). The Federal Circuit has recently granted en banc review of the issue of

whether an allegedly infringing defendant who asserts an advice of counsel defense waives

privileged communications with its trial counsel. In re Seagate Technology, 2007 WL 196403

(Fed. Cir. Jan 26, 2007). Avago therefore proposes that for now the court merely order Elan to

log its relevant communications with Akin Gump, rather than fully producing them to Avago.

It is appropriate to defer decision on this issue until the Federal Circuit rules on In re

Seagate. The court declines to order Elan to produce a privilege log now. At this point, that

task would be unduly burdensome. Avago's motion is therefore DENIED without prejudice. If

the parties cannot work the question out once In re Seagate is resolved, they can come back to

the court.

//

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United States District Court

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B. Third Party Communications

Avago asserts that Elan has refused to produce certain communications with its

technology development partners, including Peripheral Imaging Corporation ("PIC") and

Leahsin Technologies. Avago urges the court to compel production of all such

communications, including Elan Privilege Log entries 69, 121, 125-26, 209, and 218-19. Elan

asserts a joint defense/ common interest privilege over these communications. 

1. Communications with Leahsin

Elan cooperated with Leahsin to develop lighting and lens components of optical mice. 

Elan contends that the privilege in documents 209, 218, and 219 “arose from the attorney-client

relationship between Leahsin and its attorneys.” Elan reasons that Leahsin and Elan had a

common interest in designing and marketing optical mouse components that would not infringe

Avago's patents. Thus, when Leahsin shared its legal analyses with Elan, it did not waive its

privilege. Furthermore, Elan contends that it cannot waive any privilege of Leahsin’s, citing

cases for the rule that the joint defense privilege cannot be waived without the consent of all

parties to the defense. 

The parties overlook the fact that the attorney-client privilege is personal and can only

be asserted by the holder of the privilege, which is the client. Thus, Elan has no standing to

assert, in this action, a privilege between Leahsin and Leahsin’s attorneys. See, e.g., United

States v. Dellacroce, 625 F.Supp. 1387, 1394 (E.D.N.Y. 1986); United States v. Layton, 855

F.2d 1388, 1406 (9th Cir. 1988) (overruled on other grounds); Compulit v. Banctec, Inc., 177

F.R.D. 410, 412 (W.D.Mich. 1997); Sobol v. E.P. Dutton, Inc., 112 F.R.D. 99, 103 (S.D.N.Y.

1986). An attorney or other representative of a client can claim the attorney-client privilege on

the client's behalf, but Elan is in no sense the representative of Leahsin. Finally, Leahsin could

have sought to intervene pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 24(a) in order to protect any privilege it

wishes to assert in these documents, but it did not. Avago's motion is GRANTED as to

documents 209, 218, and 219.

//

//

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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2 Document 125 is not, as implied by the parties in their briefs, an email

involving Wang as either a recipient or a sender. The privilege log indicates

that the sender and recipient were both Elan employees. Apparently,

however, the content of the redacted portion is analogous to the other

documents discussed in this section. Any advantage Elan might have been

able to gain from the internal nature of this document has been waived

because Elan did not argue for such an advantage, and the party asserting any

privilege has the burden of proving it.

4

2. Communications with PIC and Chinlee Wang

Avago moves to compel Elan to produce all communications on the subject of

infringement with Chinlee Wang of PIC, including documents 69, 121, 125, and 126 from

Elan’s privilege log. Wang worked closely with Elan as the lead designer on the source code

projects for Elan's OM01 and OM02 sensors. He also worked closely with Elan’s outside

counsel when the outside counsel was investigating possible infringement to prepare his opinion

letter for Elan. Privilege log entries 121 and 126 are emails from Wang to Elan employees

transmitting a non-infringement letter created by PIC's counsel, Keith Kline of the Kline Law

Firm. The introduction section of each email has been redacted. Document 1252 is an email

from Elan in-house counsel to an Elan employee forwarding a translation of the Kline letter. A

substantial section of that email has been redacted as well. Elan lumps 121, 125, and 126

together in its opposition papers, calling them "e-mails between Chinlee Wang and Elan

transmitting the Kline non-infringement letter." The privilege log entries are identical for these

three documents: "Email communications -- redacted materials concern third-party PIC's

privileged communications." Document 69 also appears to be an email relating to PIC’s own

patent analyses. Elan argues that these documents are either irrelevant or subject to the

common interest/joint defense privilege.

The court first addresses the relevance objection. It appears that some portion of

privilege log entry 69 may pertain to Avago patents other than the patents-in-suit. The court

ORDERS Elan to submit this document for in camera review, along with narrowly crafted

proposed redactions for relevance, by March 30, 2007. The court will issue a supplemental

order on the proposed redactions. 

//

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As for privilege, Elan fails to carry its burden of proof. Elan first fails to show that the

redacted portions of documents 69, 121, 125, and 126 were transmitted in confidence for the

purpose of seeking legal advice. “Of course, to assert the common interest doctrine as a shield

to production, the parties asserting it must first establish that the underlying documents or

communications withheld were otherwise privileged before the common interest arose.” Dexia

Credit Local v. Rogan, 231 F.R.D. 268, 273-74 (N.D.Ill. 2004). 

Next, Elan makes no effort to show that Elan and PIC had a legally sufficient common

interest. Elan does not cite the leading case in the Federal Circuit on the joint defense/common

interest privilege, or attempt to show that its standards are met. Simply working together with

another company on a patent does not guarantee that the common interest exception to waiver

will apply. See In re Regents of University of California, 101 F.3d 1386 (Fed. Cir. 1996). 

Finally, Elan claims it cannot waive a privilege held by PIC, and cites several cases for

the proposition that the joint defense privilege cannot be waived without the consent of all

parties to the defense. This argument is misplaced, because Avago is not seeking to use Elan's

waiver against PIC or Wang. Any waiver by Elan is only being asserted to Elan's own

detriment. Avago's motion is GRANTED as to documents 121, 125, and 126.

3. Other Third Party Communications

Avago's motion is broader than the specific documents discussed above. Avago moves

to compel Elan to produce a complete privilege log and to produce all communications with

third parties relating to the infringement or non-infringement of the patents-in-suit. At the

hearing, Elan represented that its privilege log was complete in that it has either logged or

produced all documents responsive to Avago's requests. Elan also represented that all privilege

log entries that relate to the patents-in-suit say so explicitly. Therefore, it appears that Avago

already knows all pertinent third-party entries on Elan's privilege log, and this issue is moot.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: 3/20/07 ____________________________________

HOWARD R. LLOYD

UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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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;

CMcEntee@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: 3/20/07

 /s/ JMM 

 Chambers of Magistrate Judge Lloyd

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