ARP Wave, LLC v. Salpeter

Background

The parties filed a joint motion under Local Rule 5.6(d) concerning documents that had been filed under seal in connection with motions for summary judgment and Defendants’ motion for sanctions. The parties agreed that certain docket entries should be unsealed and that others should remain sealed, but they did not explain why continued sealing was appropriate for several entries.

The court explained that judicial records generally carry a public right of access. That right is not absolute, so the court must balance the public’s interest in access against legitimate confidentiality, privacy, property, and possible-prejudice interests. The court noted that documents filed in connection with summary-judgment motions and requests for sanctions receive a heightened presumption of public access because they relate to the court’s decision-making.

Rulings on the Sealing Requests

The court granted the motion insofar as the parties agreed that Docket Entries 195-6, 195-12, 195-13, 254-5, 254-6, 254-9, 254-12, 254-14, 254-19, and 270 would be unsealed.

The court temporarily denied the motion as to Docket Entries 254, 254-1, 254-2, 254-3, 254-11, 254-15, and 254-18 because the parties had not supplied a basis for continued sealing. Those entries would remain under temporary seal while the parties had two weeks to file a renewed joint motion explaining why they should remain sealed. If the parties did not file that motion, the court stated that it would order the entries unsealed.

The court denied the motion and ordered unsealing under the procedures in Local Rule 5.6(d) for Docket Entries 194, 195-1, 195-2, 195-3, 195-4, 195-5, 195-7, 195-9, 195-10, 195-11, 250, 250-1, 250-3, 250-5, 250-6, 250-8, 250-9, 254-7, 254-8, 254-10, 254-13, 254-16, 258, 260, and 266.

The court granted the motion insofar as Docket Entries 195-8 and 250-2 would remain sealed. It nevertheless required the parties to publicly file copies of those entries within 28 days, with credit-card information redacted.

For Docket Entries 254-10 and 254-13, the court denied continued sealing but allowed Defendants 14 days to file a supplemental memorandum under seal identifying features or elements that were not included in a device offered for sale. Plaintiff could submit a rebuttal as part of the same supplemental filing.

Reasons for the Rulings

The court found that the parties had not shown that many of the documents contained protectable confidential information. It rejected reliance solely on protective-order or “attorney’s eyes only” designations. The court also found that some information had been public, was stale, was general or non-sensitive, or had already been considered in deciding the parties’ dispositive motions.

For example, the court found insufficient grounds to keep sealed memoranda concerning alleged reverse engineering, a previously public treatment protocol, older agreements and invoices, deposition testimony, interrogatory responses, information about Food and Drug Administration approval, and documents submitted with the summary-judgment motions. The court concluded that the public’s need to understand the basis for the court’s earlier summary-judgment decision outweighed the asserted confidentiality interests for the treatment protocol and related briefing.

The court also concluded that Docket Entry 195-8 could not be made fully public because federal procedure rules require financial-account information to be redacted from public court filings. The court’s order therefore preserved sealing for that entry while requiring a redacted public version, and it imposed the same filing requirement for Docket Entry 250-2.

Disposition

The Joint Motion Regarding Continued Sealing, Docket 290, was GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. The order addressed sealing only; it did not decide the parties’ underlying claims in this order. Judge Wright signed the order on April 28, 2021.