The Court has reviewed Plaintiff’s Motion for Relief from Nondispositive Pretrial Order of Magistrate Judge, ECF No. 300, Defendants’ Opposition to Plaintiff’s motion, ECF No. 310, and Plaintiff’s Objections and Request to Strike Portions of the Declaration of Robert Beaver III submitted in support of Defendants’ Opposition, ECF No. 313.

The Court hereby GRANTS Plaintiff’s request to strike paragraphs 7–14, 16, and 18–20 of the Declaration of Robert Beaver III and DENIES Plaintiff’s Motion for Relief from Nondispositive Pretrial Order of Magistrate Judge in its entirety.

In each instance, the Court finds that the Pretrial Order was not clearly erroneous or contrary to law.

However, the Court cautions Defendants that the decision not to produce the webpages sought by Plaintiff in her Request for Production No. 85 may provide grounds to limit or exclude presentation of Defendants’ value- allocation defense if Plaintiff can make a successful showing that, after receiving notice of the impending dispute, Defendants failed to preserve relevant evidence that would have been necessary to support Plaintiff’s defense of her claims.

United States District Judge Northern District of California United States District Court

For example, when asked a direct question, “Why did Zazzle want to purchase a License to the Blooming Elegant Trio of fonts?,” Ms. Sheu gave the following answers: A: So as somebody who was working with designers, one of the things that I did was take designer-feedback.

Topic 9 asks for testimony regarding how Zazzle “generated, stored, transferred, and used scalable vector graphics (‘SVGs’)” to create images of text in the Blooming Elegant font for use in designs on Zazzle’s website and mobile app. Id. at 10.

On the record presented, the Court concludes that she has not done so with respect to examination about the number of individuals who prepared “pending designs” using the disputed font, and that no further deposition on this point is warranted at this time.

In addition, Ms. Laatz argues that Mr. Kang was unable to state whether “sales of product from Zazzle business segments that had their own design tools were included in the data or Zazzle’s interrogatory responses on the subject.” Id. at 3-4.

Zazzle responds that Mr. Kang was prepared to testify to matters within the scope of these topics, contending that Ms. Laatz’s complaints focus on “a handful of hyper-specific questions about revenue from certain subsets of products.” Id. at

While a magistrate judge’s nondispositive pretrial order may be modified or set aside if it is “clearly erroneous or is contrary to law,” the standard of review is highly deferential.

Mar. 6, 2014) (stating that unless an apex witness “has ‘some unique knowledge’ of the issues in the case, ‘it may be appropriate to preclude a redundant deposition’” (quoting Six W. Retail Acquisition v. Sony Theatre Mgmt.

After considering the Parties’ arguments and the documents and deposition excerpts referred to in their discovery dispute letter, Judge DeMarchi concluded that Mr. Beaver “does not have any unique first-hand knowledge that bears on any issue relevant to a claim or defense.” Order at 4.

The deposition of Mohamed Alkhatib to which Defendants attempt to point as evidence of Mr. Beaver’s lack of relevant knowledge occurred on the same day that the magistrate judge’s Order was issued.

In sum, the Court is left with a “definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made” in reaching the conclusion that Mr. Beaver lacks unique, first-hand knowledge that might be relevant to a claim or defense in this lawsuit.

Zazzle must serve an amended response to Interrogatory No. 9 that states the number of persons who had shops on Zazzle’s website during the time the disputed font was being offered for use in Zazzle’s design tool.

Aug. 14, 2013) (“Courts regularly require parties to produce reports from dynamic databases, holding that the technical burden of creating a new dataset for the instant litigation does not excuse production.”) (cleaned up).

In any event, Zazzle need not produce “all documents, including communications, relating to” any such other licenses, as such a request encompasses discovery that is neither relevant to a claim or defense nor proportionate to the needs of the case.

The parties are directed to confer regarding: (1) whether Zazzle’s privilege log accurately describes the privileged communication (e.g., an individual email within a longer email thread) in a manner that complies with the Ninth Circuit’s direction,3 including clearly identifying the attorney and client involved in the particular communication; (2) whether the Court should review

Absent agreement of the parties, Ms. Laatz may not exceed 10 depositions without leave of the Court, which requires a showing “particularized need.” See Fed. R. Civ.