Concurrent Ventures, LLC, et al. v. Advanced Micro Devices Inc., et al.

Background

This is a patent-infringement case involving data-processing units used in storage, networking, and artificial-intelligence infrastructure. The plaintiffs assert five patents against at least twelve accused products and characterize the case as likely worth nine figures. On June 29, 2026, the plaintiffs served a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition notice — a mechanism allowing a party to depose a corporation by requiring it to designate knowledgeable witnesses to testify on specified topics — containing 130 separately numbered topics. These topics covered, among other things, the design, development, operation, and use of the accused products; source code; the defendants' relationships with third parties; marketing; financial accounting systems; license agreements; and the defendants' legal contentions on noninfringement, invalidity, and non-infringing alternatives.

The defendants objected on July 8, 2026, arguing that 130 topics made witness preparation impossible. Despite meet-and-confer sessions, the plaintiffs maintained the notice was appropriate and told the defendants that their notice was the proposal. On August 6, the defendants identified 45 topics as unobjectionable, proposed narrowing 45 more, and proposed eliminating 40. The plaintiffs responded by dropping only 3 topics and narrowing 3 others, leaving 127 in play. The defendants then moved to quash the notice entirely or to cap a revised notice at 55 topics. Fact discovery was set to close August 27, 2026.

A prior order dated July 31, 2026 had denied the plaintiffs additional individual (Rule 30(b)(1)) depositions in part because of "the breadth of the intended Rule 30(b)(6) deposition."

Legal Standards

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b), parties may obtain discovery of any nonprivileged matter relevant to a claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case. Under Rule 30(b)(6), a deposition notice directed at a corporation must describe the matters for examination "with reasonable particularity," and the corporation must designate witnesses prepared to fully and non-evasively answer questions on the designated subjects. A court may issue a protective order (an order limiting or forbidding discovery) under Rule 26(c)(1) where burden, expense, or impracticable demands outweigh likely benefit. The party moving for a protective order bears the burden of showing good cause with competent evidence.

Ruling on the Motion to Quash and Numerical Cap

The court denied the motion to quash the notice and denied the request to cap a revised notice at 55 topics. The court held that the number of topics, standing alone, does not establish good cause for a protective order. The cases the defendants cited — involving a simple oil-and-gas enforcement action, an uninsured-motorist dispute, and a wage case — found notices excessive relative to simple cases; none fixed a numerical ceiling. The court found the more apt precedent to be a case upholding a 134-topic notice in a patent case because the topic count reflected specificity rather than sprawl.

Two case-specific facts reinforced this conclusion. First, the defendants' own topic-by-topic response conceded that 90 of the 130 topics were either unobjectionable or workable with narrowing, which cut against the premise that no reasonable preparation was possible. Second, the July 31 order had denied the plaintiffs additional depositions in part because of the anticipated breadth of this Rule 30(b)(6) notice; allowing the defendants to now quash the notice wholesale would leave the plaintiffs without discovery that prior ruling assumed they would receive.

Four Categories of Topics Struck or Limited

1. Catchall Topics

Topics that demanded testimony on every aspect of the accused products, the case, or the defendants' business — specifically Topics 1 and 37, described by the defendants as confirming the notice's full scope, and Topic 125, which sought testimony about every communication with any third party concerning the litigation (a formulation that would also sweep in privileged attorney-client communications) — were stricken. The court held these topics fail Rule 30(b)(6)'s reasonable particularity requirement. The plaintiffs may serve particularized replacement topics but may not serve catchalls.

2. Contention and Expert Topics

Topics 108, 112, 120, and 121 — seeking the defendants' positions on technical comparability of licensed patents, prior-art invalidity, noninfringement, and non-infringing alternatives — were stricken. The court found these are quintessential expert subjects on which a lay corporate designee cannot fairly be prepared to bind the corporation; the proper vehicles are contention interrogatories (written questions requiring a party to state its legal positions and the factual basis for them) and expert discovery. Topic 122 — seeking the "factual basis" for defenses the defendants intend to raise at trial — was also stricken as duplicative of contention interrogatories and disproportionate given the deposition-hour limits. All five topics were stricken without prejudice to contention interrogatories and expert discovery in the ordinary course.

3. Memorization Topics

The court limited Topics 4, 23, and 24 (source code), Topics 69 and 71–76 (financial systems and documents), and Topics 97, 100, 102, 104, and 106 (license terms). The court held that while a designee must testify to the organization's knowledge — including the structure, function, and role of identified source code in accused features; policies and practices; and categories of information maintained — the rule does not require a witness to memorize tens of millions of lines of code, every price charged, every license term, or the contents of every financial document produced. Examination on these topics may address specific documents only if the plaintiffs identify them reasonably in advance of the deposition. The parties must confer on an exhibit-identification protocol.

4. Discovery-on-Discovery Topics

Topics 128 and 129, seeking testimony about the defendants' document repositories and document-collection efforts, were stricken. The court noted that "discovery on discovery" — inquiry into how a party preserved and collected its own documents — is disfavored as generally irrelevant to the merits and rarely proportional. Such discovery is warranted only if the requesting party demonstrates a specific deficiency in the opposing party's document production; mere speculation is insufficient. Because the plaintiffs made no such showing, these topics were stricken without prejudice to a renewed, particularized request if a specific deficiency emerges.

Schedule

The court ordered: (1) the plaintiffs must serve a revised notice conforming to the order within three days, without expanding the existing notice's substantive scope; (2) within three days after service of the revised notice, the defendants must identify their designees and topic designations for all topics to which they do not object; (3) within seven days of the order, the parties must complete their meet-and-confer on remaining objections and submit joint letters (limited to five pages per issue plus a topic-by-topic chart) on any unresolved issues; and (4) the parties must cooperate to complete the Rule 30(b)(6) deposition and remaining individual depositions within the fact-discovery period. The July 31 deposition limits remain in effect.