Soter Technologies, LLC v. IP Video CorporationN
- Lewis Liman
- 1:20-cv-05007
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Soter Technologies v. IP Video, Judge Liman partly denied and partly granted a motion to seal exhibits.
The parties' access to Exhibits A, H, and K was affected, and the public versions of Exhibits A and H were to disclose all material except the confidential domain names. Exhibit K was to be unsealed.
What happened
Soter Technologies, LLC asked the Southern District of New York to seal Exhibits A, H, K, and L to its second amended complaint. The defendants said Exhibits A and H contained confidential domain-name ownership information, and that Exhibits H and K also contained confidential marketing strategy.
The court explained that judicial documents are generally presumed open to the public. A party seeking secrecy must show that sealing is necessary to protect more important interests and must limit sealing to what is necessary.
Judge Lewis J. Liman denied in part and granted in part the motion to seal. He denied sealing for Exhibit K and allowed only the confidential domain names in Exhibits A and H to remain redacted; the parties must meet and confer, and the plaintiff must file public versions of those exhibits. The Clerk was directed to unseal Exhibit K and close the sealing-motion docket.
The detailed version
- Soter Technologies, LLC v. IP Video CorporationN · No. 1:20-cv-05007
- Lewis Liman
- Apr. 2, 2021
Background
Soter Technologies, LLC moved to seal Exhibits A, H, K, and L to its second amended complaint. The court had directed the defendants to identify which exhibits they believed should remain sealed and to explain why sealing was justified under Second Circuit precedent. The defendants responded that they sought to keep Exhibits A, H, J, and K under seal. The court noted that Exhibit J had already been approved for filing under seal and that this order did not change that earlier ruling.
The defendants argued that Exhibits A and H contained confidential information about ownership of domain names. They also argued that Exhibit H contained confidential and commercially sensitive marketing-strategy discussions, and that Exhibit K contained confidential and commercially sensitive marketing-strategy information.
Legal standard
The court stated that judicial documents carry a presumption of public access. The strength of that presumption depends on how directly the documents affect the court's decision-making. The presumption must be balanced against competing interests, including privacy interests. The court also recognized a qualified First Amendment right to attend judicial proceedings and access certain judicial documents. Sealing requires specific findings that it is necessary to protect more important interests and must be narrowly tailored to that purpose.
Ruling
The court ordered that the motion to seal at Dkt. No. 99 was DENIED IN PART AND GRANTED IN PART. The motion to maintain Exhibit K under seal was DENIED. The motion to maintain Exhibits A and H under seal was DENIED IN PART: the defendants supported keeping the domain names whose ownership they claimed was confidential under seal, but they did not support sealing any other portions of Exhibits A and H. The public versions of Exhibits A and H therefore were to redact only the confidential domain names.
The plaintiff and defendants were ordered to meet and confer about redactions consistent with the order. After that meeting, the plaintiff was ordered to file public versions of Exhibits A and H containing the defendants' specified redactions. The Clerk of Court was directed to unseal Exhibit K to Dkt. No. 103 and close Dkt. No. 99. Judge Lewis J. Liman signed the order.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.