Nanometrics, Incorporated v. Optical Solutions, Inc.
- Beth Freeman
- 5:18-cv-00417
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In Nanometrics v. Optical Solutions, Judge Freeman granted one sealing motion and denied two others without prejudice.
Nanometrics, Incorporated; Optical Solutions, Inc.; Opticraft Inc.; and the employees whose salary and sales commission information appeared in the report.
What happened
Nanometrics, Incorporated v. Optical Solutions, Inc. involved three requests concerning confidential information in Nanometrics expert Julie H. Knox’s report. The report was submitted with the parties’ witness list before a scheduled pretrial conference.
The court granted Nanometrics’s request to seal information about its business strategy, financial results, employee salaries, and sales commissions. It denied without prejudice Nanometrics’s requests involving information designated confidential by Optical Solutions and Opticraft because neither entity filed the required statement or declaration.
Judge Beth Labson Freeman ordered that Optical Solutions and Opticraft could submit the required materials within specified deadlines. If either entity failed to do so, Nanometrics had to file a public version of the report removing that entity’s conditional redactions.
The detailed version
- Nanometrics, Incorporated v. Optical Solutions, Inc. · No. 5:18-cv-00417
- Beth Freeman
- Oct. 17, 2023
Background
The court considered three administrative motions concerning portions of Nanometrics expert Julie H. Knox’s report. Nanometrics filed one motion to seal its own information, one motion asking whether Optical Solutions’s confidential information should remain sealed, and one motion asking whether third-party Opticraft Inc.’s confidential information should remain sealed. Optical Solutions did not respond to any of the motions.
Legal standard
The court explained that filings connected to a case’s merits generally may be sealed only for compelling reasons, while filings only indirectly related to the merits may be sealed for good cause. The court applied the good-cause standard to all three motions. Local Rule 79-5 also requires explanations and, when necessary, declarations supporting a sealing request; information designated confidential by another party requires that designating party to file a statement or declaration supporting continued sealing.
Rulings
The court granted Nanometrics’s motion to file under seal, ECF No. 158. It approved redactions in pages 14–28 and Exhibits 4 and 5 of the Knox Report because they contained information about Nanometrics’s internal financial results and sensitive business issues. It also approved redactions in Exhibits 6 and 7.1 because they contained confidential and private employee salary and sales commission information. The court found the requests narrowly tailored.
The court denied without prejudice Nanometrics’s motion concerning Optical Solutions’s information, ECF No. 159. Optical Solutions had designated portions of Exhibit 11 as confidential but did not file the statement or declaration required by Local Rule 79-5(f)(3). The court also denied without prejudice Nanometrics’s motion concerning Opticraft’s information, ECF No. 160, for the same reason. That motion concerned portions of page 35 and Exhibit 12 designated confidential by Opticraft.
What happens next
Optical Solutions could file the required statement or declaration within 10 days after entry of the order, and Opticraft could do so within 10 days after service of the order. Nanometrics had to serve Opticraft or its counsel within three days and file proof of service. If either Optical Solutions or Opticraft failed to meet its deadline, Nanometrics had to file the Knox Report publicly with that entity’s conditional redactions removed.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.