Beverly Hills Teddy Bear Company v. Best Brands Consumer Products, Inc.

Background

Beverly Hills Teddy Bear Company asked the court to seal two exhibits that the defendants had filed in support of a motion asking the court to refer questions to the Copyright Office. The proposed redactions were limited to the identity of Beverly Hills’s toy manufacturer.

Court’s analysis

The court applied the Second Circuit’s three-step framework for sealing judicial documents. First, it found that the exhibits were judicial documents because they had been submitted to the court and were relevant to the judicial process. Second, however, the court gave very little weight to the public’s presumed right of access to the manufacturer’s name because that information was not relevant to the court’s decision not to refer the defendants’ questions to the Copyright Office at that point.

Third, the court found that confidentiality concerns supported sealing. Disclosure of the manufacturer’s identity could provide competitors with useful information about Beverly Hills’s current business practices. Although the defendants argued that the information was publicly available, the court stated that the screenshot they provided showed only that the manufacturer supplied other products to Beverly Hills, not the products involved in this case. Based on the record, the court did not understand the information to be publicly available.

Disposition

The court granted Beverly Hills’s sealing application. It directed the parties to file on the public docket all other documents that had otherwise been sealed and to file redacted versions of Exhibits 21 and 24. The defendants were also directed to refile their supporting brief with Beverly Hills’s manufacturer’s identity redacted on the page identified by Beverly Hills at Docket No. 59.