Finjan LLC v. Sonicwall, Inc.
- Virginia Demarchi
- 5:17-cv-04467
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Finjan v. SonicWall, Judge Demarchi granted motions to seal discovery materials but ordered an improperly sealed cover pleading made public.
Finjan, Inc. and SonicWall, Inc., whose discovery-related materials were addressed, as well as members of the public seeking access to the court docket.
What happened
Finjan, Inc. v. SonicWall, Inc. involved motions to seal materials connected to disputes about SonicWall’s responses to Finjan’s discovery requests. The disputes did not address the parties’ underlying claims or defenses.
The court granted the motions to seal exhibits containing source code, technical information, and proprietary business information because SonicWall showed that public disclosure could cause competitive harm. But the parties had also filed a cover pleading under seal without asking to seal it, and the court found no good cause for keeping it sealed.
Judge Virginia K. Demarchi ordered the parties to file that cover pleading on the public docket by December 6, 2019. The order was issued on December 4, 2019.
The detailed version
- Finjan LLC v. Sonicwall, Inc. · No. 5:17-cv-04467
- Virginia Demarchi
- Dec. 4, 2019
Background
The parties filed administrative motions to seal exhibits connected with two joint discovery-dispute letters and a joint submission. The discovery disputes concerned SonicWall’s responses to Finjan’s discovery requests. The court stated that these disputes were only tangentially related to the merits because they did not address the parties’ claims or defenses.
Standard for sealing
Because the materials concerned discovery disputes rather than dispositive motions, the court applied the lower “good cause” standard under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c). The court explained that most of the proposed sealed material consisted of source code, technical information about SonicWall products and services, and SonicWall’s proprietary business information. SonicWall represented that the material was confidential and that public disclosure would cause competitive harm.
Ruling
The court granted the administrative motions to seal. The ruling covered Exhibits 2 and 3 to the joint discovery letter concerning damages-related discovery, Exhibits 2 and 3 to the joint discovery letter concerning technical-related discovery, and Attachments A through F to the joint submission under the court’s November 21, 2019 interim order.
The court separately addressed the cover pleading for that joint submission. The parties had not requested that the cover pleading be sealed, but they filed it under seal anyway. The court found that no good cause existed to seal it and ordered the parties to file the cover pleading, identified as Dkt. No. 202-2, on the public docket by December 6, 2019.
Disposition
The administrative motions to seal were granted. The cover pleading was ordered to be filed publicly. Judge Virginia K. Demarchi entered the order as a United States Magistrate Judge.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.