In Patent Case, Court Indicates Importance of Damages Disclosures to Proportionality Calculation
Corning Optical Commc’ns Wireless Ltd. v. Solid, Inc., No. 5:14-cv-03750-PSG, 2015 WL 1726749 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 14, 2015)
In this patent infringement case, the court addressed the “classic chicken-and-egg” problem of requiring initial disclosures regarding damages where “[t]o provide meaningful calculations, patentees need lots of information from accused infringers. But the expense of producing lots of information can only be justified by a meaningful calculation suggesting that substantial dollars are actually at stake.” The court explained that despite significant discovery in the present case, including the exchange of “reams of data,” “neither side ha[d] any firm sense of whether this [was] a $1 case or a case worth billions.” Moreover, the court explained, “the parties here are not unusual. For years it has been the norm in patent cases to bludgeon first and value second.” In granting Defendant’s motion to compel, the court acknowledged that the information sought was not only important to the defendant, but also to the court, stating: “Proportionality is part and parcel of just about every discovery dispute.”