Foreign Language Documents Not Exempt From Discovery Obligations​

The court partially granted plaintiff's motion to compel the production of defendant's communications with third parties that referred to plaintiff or the patent-in-suit and rejected defendant's argument that it was not obligated to produce foreign language documents. "[Defendant] argues that it is not obligated to translate documents from Mandarin to English to determine whether the documents are responsive to these and other discovery requests. Its counsel cites no authority supporting this position. Courts have held that the producing party has no obligation to translate documents produced in discovery into English, but I have not located any authority for the proposition that a party can avoid producing documents responsive to a discovery request that are in a foreign language. Accordingly, [defendant] cannot avoid producing responsive documents merely because its counsel cannot comprehend the documents written in a foreign language."

TASER International, Inc. v. PhaZZer Electronics, Inc. et al, 6-16-cv-00366 (FLMD February 28, 2017, Order) (Spaulding, MJ)