IBM Corporation v. Micro Focus, Inc.

Background

The court considered the parties’ requests to seal IBM Corporation’s opposition to Micro Focus (US), Inc.’s motion for a protective order and Micro Focus’s reply. The filings and exhibits had initially been submitted temporarily under seal. After the court directed the parties to confer, they filed joint letters identifying the materials and redactions they wanted to keep confidential. Neither party objected to the other’s proposed redactions. Both parties also filed public versions of the relevant documents.

Legal standard

The court explained that judicial documents generally carry a presumption of public access under the common law and the First Amendment. To overcome that presumption, sealing must be necessary to protect higher values and narrowly tailored to serve that purpose. The court also explained that the presumption is generally weaker for filings connected with discovery disputes than for materials introduced at trial or filed with dispositive motions. Courts may seal or redact commercially sensitive information to protect confidential business and financial interests.

Rulings

The court found that ECF No. 140 and specified exhibits—ECF Nos. 140-1 to 140-5, 140-7, 140-8, 140-10, 146-1, 146-6, and 146-12—contained confidential commercial information and should remain under seal, accessible only to selected parties. It found that the redactions in ECF No. 141 and ECF No. 150-1 were narrowly tailored and ordered those documents to remain publicly accessible.

The court also kept ECF No. 140-6 under seal while allowing the redacted version in ECF No. 150-1 to remain public. For ECF No. 140-9, the court approved the proposed redactions but directed the parties to refile them using black redaction bars instead of yellow highlights. It directed the Clerk to place ECF No. 150-2 under seal and make it accessible only to selected parties.

The court kept ECF No. 146 under seal but directed the parties to file a version containing only the proposed redactions to page 4, footnote 1, and page 10. It directed the Clerk to make ECF Nos. 146-2 to 146-5 and 146-7 to 146-11 public because the parties did not seek to seal those exhibits. The court also directed the parties to notify it when any temporary confidentiality period under the protective order ended and to explain the basis for continued sealing if they wanted documents to remain sealed. Judge Victoria Reznik granted the parties’ sealing requests and issued these document-access and refiling directives.