Neo4j, Inc. v. Graph Foundation, Inc.

Background

The court held a hearing on the parties’ joint discovery letter briefs. Neo4j asked the court to compel Graph Foundation, Inc. (GFI) to provide further responses to requests for production and interrogatories. A request for production seeks documents; an interrogatory is a written question that must be answered under oath.

Requests for Production

1. The court denied Neo4j’s request to require GFI to search for and produce responsive documents held by AtomRain and GraphGrid. The court found that Neo4j had not shown GFI had control of those documents, meaning the legal right to obtain them on demand. The order does not prevent Neo4j from seeking the documents from AtomRain, GraphGrid, or another third party by subpoena.

2. The court overruled GFI’s donor-privacy objections to Requests for Production Nos. 14, 16, and 17. Because Neo4j had shown that the requests were relevant at this stage, the court granted Neo4j’s request to compel further responses. GFI had to provide supplemental responses and any additional responsive documents by July 8, 2020.

Interrogatories

The court ordered GFI to supplement its responses by July 8, 2020, as follows:

- Interrogatory No. 2: GFI had to provide the material facts concerning the development of its open-source software product, ONgDB. - Interrogatory No. 5: GFI had to provide the material facts concerning Mr. Suhy’s involvement in GFI’s inception, formation, and operation, including his involvement in developing ONgDB. - Interrogatories Nos. 6 through 9: The court overruled GFI’s donor-privacy objections and required information about GFI’s relationships with iGov Inc., GraphGrid, Inc., AtomRing, and GrapheneDB. - Interrogatory No. 10: To the extent GFI could identify people or entities who downloaded, or were reasonably believed to have downloaded, ONgDB, it had to provide the requested information in its custody, possession, or control. - Interrogatory No. 11: The court overruled GFI’s donor-privacy objection and required GFI to identify each person or entity who made a charitable donation, the nature of each donation, and the date. The court denied Neo4j’s request to compel other information under that interrogatory. - Interrogatory No. 13: GFI had to either state that it contended all source-code files at the referenced links were covered by the identified license or specify which files it contended were covered. - Interrogatory No. 16: The court ordered GFI to provide the requested information addressed by that interrogatory, but the available opinion text is truncated and does not fully show the order’s scope. - Interrogatories Nos. 17 and 18: The court found the contention interrogatories timely and required GFI to provide all responsive material facts concerning the identified contentions. A contention interrogatory asks for the facts supporting a party’s position in the case.

The court denied Neo4j’s request for a supplemental response to Interrogatory No. 20 because it sought a level of technical analysis that was not appropriate for an interrogatory.

The order also stated that GFI could answer any interrogatory by identifying business records under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 33(d), and that the parties remained obligated to supplement or correct discovery responses as required by Rule 26(e). Judge Susan Van Keulen entered the order on June 25, 2020.