Intellectual Property Law

Western District Finds: If You Don't Confer, You Don't Get a Discovery Order

By Michael Atkins

The contentious false advertising case between bicycle component manufacturers Campagnolo, S.R.L. and Full Speed Ahead, Inc. (previous STL posts here and here), hasn’t gotten any friendlier.

During Full Speed Ahead’s depositions of Campagnolo’s officers, the parties agreed that the transcripts would be designated “Attorney’s Eyes Only” under the protective order the court had entered. At Full Speed Ahead’s deposition two weeks later, Full Speed Ahead asked that the parties re-designate the transcripts as non-confidential.

When agreement wasn’t forthcoming, Full Speed Ahead filed a motion asking the court to remove the “Attorney’s Eyes Only” designations. Campagnolo responding by asking Full Speed Ahead to withdraw its motion because the parties had not conferred. Full Speed Ahead responded by saying the parties had conferred at Full Speed Ahead’s deposition and that with the parties’ upcoming deadline for filing dispositive motions, Full Speed Ahead “cannot await [Campagnolo’s] pleasure for a response.”

On March 5, the Western District found the parties’ discussion did not satisfy the “meet and confer” prerequisite to filing the motion, so it denied the motion.

“The Court will not address the underlying dispute before the parties have met in good faith to resolve it,” the court found. “The requirement that the parties negotiate in good faith, like Rule 37’s meet and confer requirement, is not a mere formality. It promotes the speedy and inexpensive resolution of disputes and avoids wasting judicial resources. Here, for example, the parties appear to disagree about the designation of less than a dozen pages of deposition testimony. If the parties sat down to discuss these dozen pages, it is likely the situation could be resolved fairly quickly. Instead, after thirty pages of motion practice, not counting the numerous pages of declarations and exhibits, the underlying dispute is no closer to being resolved than it was nearly six weeks ago.”

The case cite is Campagnolo, S.R.L. v. Full Speed Ahead, Inc., No. 08-1372 (W.D. Wash. Mar. 5, 2010).

Full post as published by Seattle Trademark Lawyer on March 07, 2010 (boomark / email).