Skillz Platform Inc. v. AviaGames Inc.

Background

Skillz Platform Inc. filed an administrative motion asking the court to decide whether material designated confidential by AviaGames Inc. should be sealed in connection with Skillz’s motion to strike a supplemental declaration by Peng Zhang. The materials included Skillz’s motion to strike and three supporting exhibits.

AviaGames filed a statement supporting sealing. It asked that highlighted portions of Skillz’s motion and Exhibits A and B remain under seal because they described the operation of AviaGames’ source code and contained confidential business information about the operation of AviaGames’ products. AviaGames stated that Exhibit C could be filed publicly and filed that document publicly.

Legal Standard

The court explained that judicial records are generally available for public inspection. Under Ninth Circuit law, documents more than indirectly related to the merits of a case may be sealed only for “compelling reasons,” while documents only indirectly related to the merits may be sealed upon a showing of “good cause.”

The court held that the good-cause standard applied because the sealing request concerned a motion to strike that was only indirectly related to the merits. The court also considered the requirement that sealing requests be narrowly tailored to cover only material that can properly be kept confidential.

Ruling

The court found good cause to seal the highlighted portions of Skillz’s motion to strike and Exhibits A and B. It concluded that those materials discussed AviaGames’ confidential source code and confidential business information, and that disclosure could harm a party’s competitive position. The court also found that the requested sealing was narrowly tailored.

The order ruled as follows:

- ECF No. 551-3, Skillz’s motion to strike the supplemental declaration of Peng Zhang: the highlighted portions were GRANTED for sealing. - ECF No. 564-2, Exhibit A, a deposition transcript of Peng Zhang: the highlighted portions were GRANTED for sealing. - ECF No. 564-3, Exhibit B, AviaGames’ supplemental responses and objections to Skillz’s interrogatories: the highlighted portions were GRANTED for sealing. - ECF No. 564-4, Exhibit C, a deposition transcript of Xiaoyang Li: sealing the entire document was DENIED because AviaGames requested that it be filed publicly.

The court therefore GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART Skillz’s administrative motion. It ordered AviaGames to file redacted versions of ECF Nos. 564-2 and 564-3 on the public docket within seven days of the order.