Beijing Meishe Network Technology Co., Ltd. v. TikTok Inc.

What the order did

The court issued an order listing questions for the parties to address at a July 12, 2024 hearing. The hearing concerned defendants’ motion to dismiss the fourth amended complaint and defendants’ motion to compel Meishe to identify its trade secrets and stay discovery in the interim.

Questions concerning trade secrets and choice of law

The court asked whether Meishe was alleging that each line entry in Exhibit O to the fourth amended complaint was a trade secret misappropriated by defendants, and whether Exhibit O contained all of Meishe’s source code. The court also asked whether paragraph 150 of the complaint summarized the source code identified in Exhibit O.

For the trade-secret choice-of-law dispute under the Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act, the court stated that neither side had adequately briefed whether California or Texas law should apply under the most significant relationship test. The court directed the parties to be prepared to make short arguments on that issue at the hearing.

Questions concerning copyright and Digital Millennium Copyright Act claims

The court asked whether defendants had legal authority for their argument that, when alleging “striking similarity,” a plaintiff must plausibly allege striking similarity for each copyrighted work. It also questioned whether the app versions at issue were created while Mr. Xie was employed by Meishe and whether defendants’ argument assumed that all of Meishe’s copyrighted works were derivative works. The court noted that, on a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, reasonable inferences must be drawn in Meishe’s favor.

Regarding the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the court asked whether Meishe was asserting claims under sections 1202(a) and 1202(b), or only section 1202(b). It also asked about the copyright holder listed for app 1.5, identified in the order as Copyright China Digital Video (Beijing) Limited; requested arguments about whether to follow reasoning from Tremblay v. OpenAI, Inc.; and asked how case law requiring the original work and the copy with copyright-management information removed to be identical would apply to source code.

Disposition

This order did not grant, deny, dismiss, or otherwise decide either motion. It required the parties to be prepared to address the listed questions at the July 12, 2024 hearing. The order was signed by United States District Judge Susan Illston.