Quintara Biosciences, Inc. v. Ruifeng Biztech Inc.

Background

The parties jointly stipulated to a protective order in September 2020, and the court adopted it with conditions. The order warned against overly broad requests to seal materials and stated that confidential materials used in open court would not automatically receive special treatment. The parties litigated under the order without issue until November 2021, when new counsel for defendants Ruifeng Biztech Inc., RF Biotech LLC, Gangyou Wang, and Alan Li filed the motion at issue. The new defense counsel had not signed the order’s acknowledgment and agreement to be bound and therefore had not reviewed documents designated confidential in the trade-secret litigation.

The Protective Order and the Parties’ Arguments

The defendants sought to vacate the protective order or obtain permission to amend it. They argued, among other things, that the order was a blanket order lacking adequate designations and qualifications, and that it gave Quintara unrestricted authority to withhold discoverable and admissible evidence from the court, jury, and defendants. They also challenged the order’s definition of “confidential” and its “highly confidential—attorneys’ eyes only” designation.

The court explained that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(c) allows protective orders to protect parties and witnesses during discovery. This protective order restricted disclosure and use of documents and information outside the litigation, while allowing internal safeguards—such as attorneys’-eyes-only designations—within the litigation. The court described umbrella protective orders as orders that presumptively protect material designated confidential unless the designation is challenged. It stated that such orders do not give a party unlimited authority to withhold information from other parties or the court and are commonly used when discovery involves large amounts of potentially protected material.

The court distinguished the defendants’ cited authorities. It explained that the decision in Foltz concerned a challenge to the sealing of judicial records and did not hold that umbrella protective orders were impermissible. The court also explained that Kamakana concerned the standard for sealing documents after they are filed in the judicial record, not the standard for protecting documents and information exchanged during discovery. Publicly accessible information would not ultimately be sealed merely because it had been designated confidential, and confidential discovery materials would not necessarily be sealed when filed. A party seeking to seal materials would still have to comply with Civil Local Rule 79-5 and seek a sealing order.

Ruling

Judge William Alsup denied the motion to vacate or amend the protective order, without prejudice to a separate motion challenging document designations that the defendants believed were improper, after a genuine meet-and-confer. The court further ruled that new defense counsel had stepped into the position of previous counsel and that defense counsel and the defendants were subject to the protective order whether or not counsel had signed the acknowledgment and agreement to be bound.

Classification

This was a procedural order concerning discovery and the management of a protective order. The court did not decide the underlying trade-secret dispute.