Entangled Media, LLC v. Dropbox, Inc.
- Virginia Demarchi
- 5:23-cv-03264
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Entangled Media v. Dropbox, Judge DeMarchi granted in part Dropbox’s motion, ordering privilege-log changes and production of some materials.
Entangled Media must produce specified documents, amend its November 22, 2024 privilege log, and potentially submit representative documents for private court review. Dropbox may pursue the permitted challenges to the disputed log entries.
What happened
Entangled Media, LLC v. Dropbox, Inc. concerns Dropbox’s request to make Entangled Media provide more information about documents it withheld as legally protected and to produce some of those documents. Dropbox also asked to change the case schedule because it filed the request after fact-gathering had ended.
The court found that Dropbox generally had not shown a sufficient reason to challenge most earlier privilege-log entries late. But it allowed Dropbox to challenge parts of Entangled Media’s November 22, 2024 supplemental log involving communications with patent attorney Dawn-Marie Bey and claimed disclosure of information about who invented the patents. The court also examined entries that lacked required details or involved documents shared with third parties.
Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi granted in part Dropbox’s motion. She ordered Entangled Media to produce specified materials concerning inventorship and related subjects, including Mr. Drew’s executed termination agreement, by April 21, 2025. She also ordered an amended privilege log by April 28, 2025, and provided for possible court review of 10 representative documents shared with third parties.
The detailed version
- Entangled Media, LLC v. Dropbox, Inc. · No. 5:23-cv-03264
- Virginia Demarchi
- Apr. 8, 2025
Background
Dropbox moved to require Entangled Media to supplement several privilege logs and produce documents that Dropbox argued were no longer protected by attorney-client privilege or work-product protection. Dropbox also sought an amendment to the scheduling order because it filed the motion more than two weeks after the close of fact discovery. Entangled Media opposed the motion.
The court explained that discovery-related motions generally had to be filed no later than seven days after the fact-discovery deadline. It found that, except for one category of dispute, Dropbox had not shown good cause to obtain relief from that deadline. The court stated that deficiencies in privilege logs served in August, September, and October 2024 should have been raised before fact discovery closed or within seven days afterward.
The court treated the subject-matter-waiver issues and the November 22, 2024 Second Supplemental Privilege Log differently. Near the end of fact discovery, Entangled Media produced emails between its CEO, Erik Caso, and its prosecuting attorney for the asserted patents, Dawn-Marie Bey, to rebut Dropbox’s allegations of improper inventorship and inequitable conduct. Entangled Media then served a supplemental privilege log containing more than 750 entries, some of which Dropbox argued fell within a subject-matter waiver.
Ruling
The court granted in part Dropbox’s motion. Applying Federal Rule of Evidence 502(b), it held that Entangled Media waived attorney-client privilege and work-product protection for materials prepared by, or communications exchanged with, Dawn-Marie Bey concerning matters bearing on inventorship of the inventions claimed in the asserted patents.
The court ordered Entangled Media to produce materials concerning:
- Inventorship of the inventions claimed in the asserted patents, without limiting the production to specific references to Matt Drew or his contribution or lack of contribution;
- Conception of the parts of the claimed inventions involving the creation and use of “meta indices” of data files sent to a web service, integrating those indices into a database, and sending them to a local device;
- Communications with Ms. Bey about Mr. Drew’s work; and
- Relevant portions of Ms. Bey’s audio recording or notes of the oral disclosure made to her.
The court also ordered Entangled Media to produce Mr. Drew’s executed termination agreement. The production deadline was April 21, 2025. The opinion states that Entangled Media had not located the audio recording and had not located an executed copy of the agreement, although it had produced an unexecuted copy of the agreement.
Privilege-log requirements and third-party documents
The court found that many disputed entries in the November 22, 2024 supplemental log did not provide enough information to establish an initial showing that privilege or work-product protection applied. Examples included missing document dates and missing names of people who sent, received, or saw the documents. The court also noted that Entangled Media appeared to claim protection for documents shared with investors and other third parties. The court stated that those disclosures ordinarily waive attorney-client privilege and may waive work-product protection, although the entries did not provide enough information to decide whether protection survived.
Because Entangled Media had the burden of establishing that protection applied, the court ordered it to amend the November 22, 2024 supplemental log for all disputed entries identified in Exhibit B. The amended log had to include the information identified as sufficient in In re Grand Jury Investigation, to the extent that information was available, and had to be served by April 28, 2025.
If Entangled Media continued to withhold documents shared with third parties, each side was required to select five representative documents, for a total of 10 documents, for the court’s in-camera review, meaning review by the judge privately rather than as part of a public hearing. Any such submission was due May 5, 2025. The court stated that it would issue a further order after that review.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.