Plaintiff's motion to compel the deposition of defendant's systems architect was granted. "[N]one of [the cases cited by the parties concerning the timing of pinpoint infringement contentions following production of source code], and in fact, no case which the Court has found, per se restricts a party’s ability to take a deposition of a software writer contingent upon its providing pinpoint source code contentions. It might be assumed, from these cases, that the burden is entirely upon a party’s own experts to examine source code and to then come up with specific or pinpoint infringement contentions. If that is the case, at least in the view of this Court, it may be too general of a conclusion, and one which does not allow for specific facts in specific cases to be evaluated. . . . [W]hat is the harm if the deposition proceeds? [Defendant] has already produced its source code. [Plaintiff] has identified its infringement contentions; it has refined them; and it indicates it requires this discovery to determine if its contentions can be set out in an even more pinpoint fashion. There is no contention here that [plaintiff] would use a deposition pertaining to [defendant's] source code to develop information not relevant to this lawsuit, within the meaning of Rule 26. Additionally, this Court should not be put in the position of micromanaging a deposition, as [defendant] seems to request, to limit it specifically to those pinpoint infringement contentions identified by [plaintiff]."
Nomadix, Inc. v. Hewlett-Packard Company, et. al., 2-09-cv-08441 (CACD August 10, 2011, Order) (Kenton, M.J.)
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