HotSpot Therapeutics, Inc. v. Nurix Therapeutics, Inc.
- Thomas Hixson
- 3:22-cv-04109
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In HotSpot Therapeutics v. Nurix Therapeutics, Judge Hixson rejected a categorical confidentiality rule and ordered further briefing if the parties disputed a prosecution bar.
HotSpot Therapeutics, Inc. and Nurix Therapeutics, Inc., particularly the parties’ handling of confidential discovery information and any employees seeking access to it.
What happened
HotSpot Therapeutics, Inc. and Nurix Therapeutics, Inc. disagreed about a proposed protective order governing confidential information exchanged during their collaboration. HotSpot wanted all information exchanged under their agreement to be automatically treated as confidential.
The court agreed with Nurix that this automatic rule was too broad because disclosure to one person at HotSpot would not necessarily mean disclosure to everyone allowed to view confidential information. The court said HotSpot could challenge specific confidentiality designations or seek permission for particular employees to review claimed trade secrets. If the parties still disputed a prosecution bar, the court ordered them to file a joint letter brief explaining both sides’ positions.
Judge Thomas S. Hixson issued the discovery order on March 1, 2023. The order directed the parties either to stipulate to a protective order consistent with the court’s guidance or have Nurix file a modified proposed order stating that it was not stipulated to.
The detailed version
- HotSpot Therapeutics, Inc. v. Nurix Therapeutics, Inc. · No. 3:22-cv-04109
- Thomas Hixson
- Mar. 1, 2023
Background
The parties submitted a dispute about a proposed protective order. A protective order is a court-approved agreement that limits how litigation information may be used and who may see it.
HotSpot proposed adding a sentence stating that confidential information would include information disclosed, transferred, or made available by one party to the other during the term of their Collaboration and Materials Transfer Agreement, dated September 17, 2015, and amended November 8, 2016. HotSpot also argued that its employees needed to review Nurix’s alleged trade secrets to litigate the case effectively.
Court’s Analysis
The court agreed with Nurix that HotSpot’s proposed categorical rule was not appropriate. The fact that a document was disclosed to someone at HotSpot under the Collaboration Agreement did not mean that the document was disclosed to every person who would be allowed to see confidential information under the protective order.
The court treated HotSpot’s argument about employee access as a separate issue. HotSpot could challenge a designation that it believed improperly classified documents as highly confidential. It could also seek to modify the protective order to allow particular employees to review Nurix’s claimed trade secrets. But HotSpot had not shown that everything exchanged under the Collaboration Agreement should automatically receive confidential treatment.
Prosecution-Bar Issue and Order
Nurix’s portion of the parties’ letter brief also argued that the “prosecution bar” issue should be resolved. A prosecution bar generally limits certain litigation participants from working on related patent-prosecution matters after reviewing confidential information. The court noted that the joint letter brief described only one dispute, HotSpot’s section did not discuss a prosecution-bar disagreement, and the exhibit showed competing language only in paragraph 2.2.
The court ordered the parties to file a joint discovery letter brief setting out both sides’ views if there was in fact a prosecution-bar dispute. The court also directed the parties to promptly stipulate to a protective order consistent with its guidance if they could do so. If they could not, Nurix was directed to file a proposed protective order modified to state that it was not stipulated to.
Disposition
The court issued this discovery order concerning the proposed protective order. It did not decide whether Nurix’s information was in fact a trade secret or resolve the merits of the underlying dispute.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.