In re ChromaCode Litigation
- Virginia Demarchi
- 5:23-cv-04823
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In re ChromaCode Litigation: Judge DeMarchi granted one sealing motion with exceptions and granted the other, requiring public redacted exhibits.
The order affects plaintiffs California Institute of Technology and ChromaCode, Inc.; defendant Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc.; and non-party Verily Life Sciences, LLC. It determines which materials must remain sealed and which must be filed publicly with redactions.
What happened
In In re ChromaCode Litigation, ChromaCode asked the court to seal materials connected to its request to amend its infringement contentions. Bio-Rad and Verily provided statements about the materials they wanted protected.
The court granted ChromaCode’s first motion to seal except for Exhibits 1 and 6, which did not need sealing. Verily sought protection for portions of Exhibits 2 and 7, and Bio-Rad sought protection for confidential information in Exhibit 3, including information identifying custom assays.
Judge DeMarchi granted ChromaCode’s second motion to seal and found good cause to keep the requested information confidential. The court ordered ChromaCode to file public versions with appropriate redactions by October 23, 2025.
The detailed version
- In re ChromaCode Litigation · No. 5:23-cv-04823
- Virginia Demarchi
- Oct. 9, 2025
Background
Plaintiffs California Institute of Technology and ChromaCode, Inc., collectively called “ChromaCode,” filed two administrative motions asking the court to consider sealing materials belonging to another party. The materials were connected to ChromaCode’s motion for leave to amend its infringement contentions. Defendant Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., and non-party Verily Life Sciences, LLC, filed statements concerning the sealing requests.
Because the motions concerned a discovery matter, the court applied the “good cause” standard for sealing.
Rulings
The court granted ChromaCode’s first motion to seal, Dkt. No. 127, except as to Exhibits 1 and 6. Bio-Rad and Verily stated that those exhibits did not require sealing, so ChromaCode was ordered to file public versions of them. Verily stated that Exhibits 2 and 7 did not need to be sealed in their entirety but requested sealing portions containing confidential business information.
The court also granted ChromaCode’s second motion to seal, Dkt. No. 137. Bio-Rad requested sealing portions of Exhibit 3 concerning the identification of custom assays that had not been disclosed publicly or to Bio-Rad’s competitors. The court found good cause to keep the requested material sealed and ordered ChromaCode to file a revised public version of Exhibit 3 with Bio-Rad’s identified redactions.
Deadline and Judge
The court ordered ChromaCode to file public versions of the documents with appropriate redactions by October 23, 2025. Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi entered the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.