Avaya Inc. v. Pearce
- Susan Illston
- 3:19-cv-00565
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Avaya v. Pearce, Judge Illston kept Avaya’s counterfeit-analysis documents confidential, granted sealing motions, and denied Atlas’s requests to strike and impose sanctions.
Avaya Inc.’s confidentiality designations remain in place for the challenged Counterfeit Analysis documents; Atlas Systems, Inc. may review the portions Avaya agreed to make available but did not obtain the broader disclosure, declaration-striking, or sanctions it requested.
What happened
Avaya Inc. asked to keep confidential two versions of a document explaining how it identifies counterfeit products. Atlas Systems, Inc. opposed the request, argued that much of the information was publicly available, and asked the court to unseal the briefing and sanction Avaya.
The court found that releasing the document could give potential counterfeiters a roadmap for avoiding Avaya’s detection methods. It also found that the document’s redactions were narrowly tailored and that the private interests in confidentiality outweighed any public interest in disclosure.
In Avaya Inc. v. Pearce, Judge Susan Illston granted Avaya’s motion to retain confidentiality and granted the motions to seal. She denied Atlas’s requests to strike a declaration and for sanctions.
The detailed version
- Avaya Inc. v. Pearce · No. 3:19-cv-00565
- Susan Illston
- Dec. 22, 2020
Background
Avaya Inc. asked the court to retain the confidentiality designations for highly confidential and confidential versions of a document called the “Counterfeit Analysis.” The document explains how Avaya determines whether a product is counterfeit, including the factors and attributes it considers. Avaya had produced the full document to defense counsel, but the confidentiality designation prevented counsel from showing the unredacted version to their clients.
Atlas Systems, Inc. opposed Avaya’s request. Atlas argued that much of the information marked highly confidential was publicly available. Atlas also argued that a declaration submitted by Lisa McCann contained false statements, and it asked the court to unseal the briefing, strike the declaration, and impose sanctions against Avaya.
Legal standard and analysis
The court explained that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c)(1)(G) permits protection of trade secrets and other confidential commercial information for good cause. The party seeking protection must show specific harm that would result from disclosure, rather than relying on broad allegations. If specific harm is shown, the court must balance the public and private interests in deciding whether confidentiality should continue.
The court found that Avaya met its burden. Although some information appeared publicly in different places and forms, the Counterfeit Analysis gathered the information into one report and explained the significance of the factors it discussed. The court found that disclosure would cause specific harm by giving potential counterfeiters a roadmap for evading Avaya’s detection measures. It also found that the public and private interests favored continued confidentiality and that there was no particular public interest in disclosure. The court noted that Avaya had agreed to make portions of the document reviewable by Atlas, making the redactions narrowly tailored to protect only the sensitive material.
Ruling
Judge Susan Illston granted Avaya’s motion and ordered that the highly confidential and confidential versions of the challenged document retain the confidentiality levels designated by Avaya. The court granted the administrative motions to seal. It denied Atlas’s request to strike the McCann declaration and denied Atlas’s request for sanctions. The opinion does not rule on the underlying claims in the case.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.