Judge: Lee R. Bogdanoff, Case: 21STCV12297, Date: 2023-08-09 Tentative Ruling
Case Number: 21STCV12297 Hearing Date: August 9, 2023 Dept: 29
TENTATIVE
Lab Zero’s Motion for Judicial Adjudication of Legal Issues Underlying Discovery is
DENIED without prejudice.
Legal
Standard
Before
commencing discovery on any trade secret action, “the party alleging the
misappropriation shall identify the trade secret with reasonable
particularity.” (Code of Civil Procedure section 2019.210.)
A
trade secret is "information, including a formula, pattern, compilation,
program, device, method, technique, or process, that: [¶] (1) Derives
independent economic value, actual or potential, from not being generally known
to the public or to other persons who can obtain economic value from its
disclosure or use; and [¶] (2) Is the subject of efforts that are reasonable
under the circumstances to maintain its secrecy." (Civ. Code, § 3426.1,
subd. (d); see IMAX Corp. v. Cinema Technologies, Inc. (1998) 152 F.3d
1161, 1165.)
“ ‘Reasonable particularity’ mandated by section 2019.210
does not mean that the party alleging misappropriation has to define every
minute detail of its claimed trade secret at the outset of the litigation. Nor
does it require a discovery referee or trial court to conduct a miniature trial
on the merits of a misappropriation claim before discovery may commence.
Rather, it means that the plaintiff must make some showing that is reasonable,
i.e., fair, proper, just and rational[,] (See City of Santa Cruz v. Municipal
Court (1989) 49 Cal.3d 74, 90, 260), under all of the circumstances to
identify its alleged trade secret in a manner that will allow the trial court
to control the scope of subsequent discovery, protect all parties' proprietary
information, and allow them a fair opportunity to prepare and present their
best case or defense at a trial on the merits. (§ 2017.010; Greyhound Corp.
v. Superior Court (1961) 56 Cal.2d 355; Calcor Space Facility Inc. v.
Superior Court (1997) 53 Cal.App.4th 216, 223–224; Diodes, Inc. v.
Franzen, supra, 260 Cal.App.2d at p. 253.) . . . . The degree of ‘particularity’ that is ‘reasonable’ will differ,
depending on the alleged trade secrets at issue in each case.” (Advanced
Modular Sputtering, Inc. v. Superior Ct. (2005) 132 Cal.App.4th 826,
835–36.)
The four interrelated goals of section 2019.210 are
to: (1) promote well-investigated claims and dissuade the filing of meritless
trade secret complaints; (2) prevent plaintiffs from using the discovery
process as a means to obtain the defendant’s trade secrets; (3) assist the
court in framing the appropriate scope of discovery and determining whether
plaintiff’s discovery request fall within that scope; and (4) enable defendants
to form complete and well-reasoned defenses. (Brescia v. Angelin (2009)
172 Cal.App.4th 133, 144, citing Advanced Modular, supra 132
Cal.App.4th at 833-844.)
Evidence
Code §1060 allows the owner of the trade secret to refuse to disclose the
secret, and to prevent others from disclosing it if allowance of such privilege
does not conceal a fraud or otherwise create an injustice.
Discussion
Under the statute, “at this prediscovery stage of the
proceedings,” while the Court may recognize the existence of a credible dispute
between the parties, it is not necessary for the Court to resolve it. (See Brescia
v. Angelin (2009) 172 Cal.App.4th 133, 146.)
Here, Lab Zero’s
disclosure pursuant to CCP 2019.210 is
not adequately particular given the nature of the alleged secret and the
technology in which it arises, to permit Cross-Defendants to ascertain whether
and in what way the information is distinguished from matters already known, or
to permit the court to fashion appropriate discovery.
“Where,
as here, the alleged trade secrets consist of incremental variations on, or
advances in the state of the art in a highly specialized technical field, a
more exacting level of particularity may be required to distinguish the alleged
trade secrets from matters already known to persons skilled in that field.” (Id.,
at 836.)
When the nature of the alleged trade secret or the
technical field in which it arises makes a detailed description alone
inadequate to permit the defendant to learn the limits of the secret and
develop defenses or to permit the court to understand the secret and fashion
discovery, the court may require an explanation of how the alleged trade secret
differs from matters known to skilled persons in the field as necessary to
satisfy those needs. (Brescia v. Angelin, supra, 172 Cal.App.4th at 150.)
Here, the details alone, without further explanation, are
inadequate to permit Cross Defendants to discern the boundaries of the trade
secret so as to prepare available defenses, and they are inadequate to permit
the court to understand the identification so as to craft discovery. As such,
Lab Zero needs to particularize how the alleged secret differs from matters
already known to skilled persons in the field.
For example, element C of the Z-engine
claims that engine uses “separate encrypted files in which they are stored, as
opposed to the industry standard of storing assets in widely-used file formats
with specific purposes” to accomplish a certain goal. It does not specify what
makes the encrypted files unique from other used in the industry such that they
can be identified in discovery.
Claimed elements S and T are described as
“proprietary formats” for storing various data still do not provide any detail
as to what defines these proprietary formats or how they differ from formats
commonly known in the industry.
Moreover, in the Art Creation and
Pipline and Methods, Claimed element A is described as Knowledge of processes and
requirements for creating the aforementioned constituent colors, line, shade,
and dye layers, including but not limited to: tutorials for creating said
layers; color matching and aliasing requirements for colors and dye layers . .
. and methods for ensuring such layers match.” The disclosure does not identify
what the “processes” or “methods” consist of, or how they can be distinguished
from common knowledge in the industry.
Claimed Element B is similarly
deficient as it fails to identify the “scripts” and “tools” beyond asserting
that they are “proprietary.”
Conclusion
Based on the foregoing, Lab
Zero’s Motion for
Judicial Adjudication of Legal Issues Underlying Discovery is DENIED without
prejudice.
Moving party is
ordered to give notice.