`571-272-7822 Date Entered: 4 November 2013
`
`UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
`____________
`
`BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
`____________
`
`ABB INC.
`Petitioner,
`
`v.
`
`ROY-G-BIV CORPORATION
`Patent Owner
`____________
`
`Case IPR2013-00062
`Case IPR2013-00282
`Patent 6,516,236 B1
`____________
`
`
`
`
`Before, THOMAS L. GIANNETTI, BRYAN F. MOORE, and
`JENNIFER S. BISK, Administrative Patent Judges.
`
`GIANNETTI, Administrative Patent Judge.
`
`
`
`DECISION
`Motion to Seal
`37 C.F.R. §§ 42.1 and 42.54
`
`
`
`Case IPR2013-00062
`Case IPR2013-00282
`Patent 6,516,236 B1
`
`
`Petitioner, ABB Inc., has filed a motion to seal certain documents produced
`
`by Patent Owner, Roy-G-Biv Corporation. Paper 43 (“Motion”). The documents
`
`consist of a deposition transcript (Ex. 1129) of Patent Owner’s founder and
`
`chairman, David W. Brown, Mr. Brown’s weekly status reports from 1994 and
`
`1995 (Exs. 1110-16, 1122-26), an additional set of time records for EMC Project
`
`containing time entries (Ex. 1128), and agenda materials from a June 1995 officer
`
`meeting attended by Mr. Brown (Ex. 1120). For the reasons that follow, we deny
`
`Petitioner’s motion.
`
`DISCUSSION
`
`The Board’s standards for granting motions to seal are discussed in Garmin
`
`International v. Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC, IPR2012-00001 (Paper 34,
`
`March 14, 2013). In summary, there is a strong public policy for making all
`
`information filed in inter partes review proceedings open to the public. Id. The
`
`standard for granting a motion to seal is “good cause.” 37 C.F.R. § 42.54. The
`
`moving party bears the burden of showing that the relief requested should be
`
`granted. 37 C.F.R. § 42.20(c). This includes showing that the information is truly
`
`confidential, and that such confidentiality outweighs the strong public interest in
`
`having an open record. In addition, a motion to seal is required to include a
`
`certification that the moving party has in good faith conferred, or attempted to
`
`confer, with the opposing party in an effort to come to an agreement on the scope
`
`of the protection sought. Garmin, supra at 3.
`
`Petitioner, as the moving party, has failed to carry this burden. The issue of
`
`Mr. Brown’s diligence in 1994-95 was injected into this proceeding by Patent
`
`Owner, to overcome certain references relied on by Petitioner. In support,
`
`Petitioner submitted Mr. Brown’s declaration (Ex. 2010) and, as corroboration, his
`
`
`
`2
`
`
`
`Case IPR2013-00062
`Case IPR2013-00282
`Patent 6,516,236 B1
`
`1994-95 time records (Exs. 2010-3 – 2010-6). Neither Mr. Brown’s declaration
`
`nor the related documents were sealed. The documents that are the subject of this
`
`motion relate to the activities of Mr. Brown in that same period. Motion 2.
`
`Petitioner relies on them to rebut Patent Owner’s allegation of diligence. Neither
`
`Petitioner, nor Patent Owner, explain why some documents concerning Mr.
`
`Brown’s activities from that period should be sealed, when others are not.
`
`Upon reviewing the documents, it is difficult to see how summary
`
`descriptions of Mr. Brown’s activities from seventeen years ago are confidential
`
`today. There is no proof in the record that the information contained in the
`
`documents is confidential, only the fact that they were designated confidential in
`
`the district court proceeding. That is not sufficient, especially when weighed
`
`against the public’s access rights to the evidence relied on by the parties.
`
`
`
` Finally, there is no indication that the parties have conferred to reach
`
`agreement on the scope of the protection, if any, that is necessary to protect any
`
`confidential information. See 37 C.F.R. § 42.54. The certification provided by
`
`Petitioner indicates only that Patent Owner does not oppose the motion.
`
`
`
`The parties are, therefore, directed to meet and confer on the issues raised by
`
`this decision, particularly, whether there is a need to seal the documents relied on
`
`by Petitioner when other, similar documents relied on by Patent Owner are not
`
`sealed.
`
`In view of the foregoing, it is therefore
`
`ORDERED that Petitioner’s Motion to Seal is denied;
`
`FURTHER ORDERED that Exhibits 1110-16, 1120, and 1122-26, and 1128
`
`submitted under seal, shall be made public in ten business days from the date of
`
`this order;
`
`
`
`3
`
`
`
`Case IPR2013-00062
`Case IPR2013-00282
`Patent 6,516,236 B1
`
`
`FURTHER ORDERED that within five business days from the date of this
`
`order the parties shall meet and confer (in person or by telephone) to discuss in
`
`good faith the maintenance by Patent Owner of its confidentiality claim for the
`
`documents identified above. The results of this conference shall be reported to
`
`Board, promptly, by email.
`
`
`
`
`PETITIONER:
`
`Richard D. McLeod
`Michael D. Jones
`Klarquist Sparkman LLP
`rick.mcleod@klarquist.com
`michael.jones@klarquist.com
`
`
`
`PATENT OWNER:
`
`Richard T. Black
`Joel B. Ard
`Foster Pepper PLLC
`blacr@foster.com
`ardjo@foster.com
`
`
`
`
`4
Accessing this document will incur an additional charge of $.
After purchase, you can access this document again without charge.
Accept $ Charge
Still Working On It
This document is taking longer than usual to download. This can happen if we need to contact the court directly to obtain the document and their servers are running slowly.
Give it another minute or two to complete, and then try the refresh button.
A few More Minutes ... Still Working
It can take up to 5 minutes for us to download a document if the court servers are running slowly.
Thank you for your continued patience.
This document could not be displayed.
We could not find this document within its docket. Please go back to the docket page and check the link. If that does not work, go back to the docket and refresh it to pull the newest information.
Your account does not support viewing this document.
You need a Paid Account to view this document. Click here to change your account type.
Your account does not support viewing this document.
Set your membership
status to view this document.
With a Docket Alarm membership, you'll
get a whole lot more, including:
- Up-to-date information for this case.
- Email alerts whenever there is an update.
- Full text search for other cases.
- Get email alerts whenever a new case matches your search.
One Moment Please
The filing “” is large (MB) and is being downloaded.
Please refresh this page in a few minutes to see if the filing has been downloaded. The filing will also be emailed to you when the download completes.
Your document is on its way!
If you do not receive the document in five minutes, contact support at support@docketalarm.com.
Sealed Document
We are unable to display this document, it may be under a court ordered seal.
If you have proper credentials to access the file, you may proceed directly to the court's system using your government issued username and password.
Access Government Site
