plicant can request access generally to “information held by the unsuccessful party,” the Rules of Procedure mention, in particular, “documents relating to turnover and profits generated by the infringing products or regarding the extent of use of the infringing process as well as accounts and bank documents, and any related document concerning the infringement.”8 Access to this evidence can, again, be restricted to specific persons to protect confidential information.9When U.S. parallel litigation is pending or on the horizon, it can be expected that the party obtaining evidence under the above provisions may want to use it in the U.S. action. Whether the court orders restricted access to the evidence and/or other terms of non-disclosure will be important in such a situation, and the parties will likely spend significant efforts arguing about this issue.Order to Communicate InformationIn the U.S., parties may request written information from each other by way of interrogatories under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 33. Within 30 days, the responding party must answer interrogatories, to the extent not objected to, in writing and under oath. Interrogatories may relate to “any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case,”10 and parties routinely ask each other for broad categories of information, including the details of, and bases for, their legal positions (“contention interrogatories”). As with document requests, the court only gets involved to resolve disputes. Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, there are no interrogatories to third parties.11The UPC Agreement provides for specifically listed information to be obtained from specific parties, with the court’s involvement. In particular, in response to a “justified and proportionate request,” Article 67 authorizes the court to order an infringer to inform the applicant of: (a) the origin and distribution channels of the infringing products or processes; (b) the quantities

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have long stated that “the grounds for objecting to an interrogatory must be stated with specificity” and since December 1, 2015 the Federal Rules also state that, with regard to document requests, “[f]or each item or category, the response must either state that inspection and related activities will be permitted as requested or state with specificity the grounds for objecting to the request, including the reasons.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(b)(4) and 34(b)(2)(B). The word “specificity” in both rules precludes generic “general” objections.

losed evidence need not be ‘result altering’ to warrant a new trial under Rule 60(b)(3).”The Court found “clear and convincing evidence” of misconduct by Officer Tincher’s failure to disclose evidence of the Fortune lawsuit. It held that Officer Tincher was required to supplement his responses under Rule 26(e)(1). Fortune was filed six months after the initial discovery response and two months before Morgan’s trial.The Fourth Circuit added:Nothing in Rule 26(e) relieves a party from the obligation to supplement that party’s discovery responses on the basis that the original discovery request was untimely. Here, Officer Tincher forfeited any timeliness objection regarding Morgan’s discovery request by failing to raise such an objection before responding to the request. Under Rule 33(b)(4), “[t]he grounds for objecting to an interrogatory must be stated with specificity,” and “[a]ny ground not stated in a timely objection is waived unless the court, for good cause, excuses the failure.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(b)(4). Although Officer Tincher raised other objections to Morgan’s interrogatories, he did not assert that the requests were untimely. Further, the district court did not make a finding of good cause that would have excused Officer Tincher’s failure to raise this objection. Thus, we conclude that Officer Tincher’s failure to disclose evidence of the Fortune lawsuit, irrespective whether that failure was inadvertent or intentional, was misconduct under Rule 60(b)(3). [emphasis added].Morgan v. Tincher, No. 21-2060, __ F.4th __ (4th Cir. Jan. 3, 2024).The Court rejected the argument that Morgan had not presented a meritorious claim. Evidence of the Fortune lawsuit “would have helped” because it was a third claim of excessive force against Officer Tincher and “the allegations regarding Tincher’s actions against Fortune were strikingly similar to Morgan’s own allegations against Tincher.” The Court added:Finally, we have little trouble concluding that the last step in the Rule 60(b)(3) analysi

INTERROGATORIES MUST BE COMPLETE & DOCUMENTS MUST BE PRODUCED ON A DATE CERTAINThird, the Court addressed defendants’ responses, explaining that:“Defendant NIC supplemented its outstanding interrogatories by asserting that Plaintiffs would receive the answers to those interrogatories at NIC’s upcoming Rule 30(b)(6) deposition.” Defendant NIC wrote that it “will make a reasonable search of sources reasonably likely to contain responsive documents and such responsive documents will be made available for inspection and copying at NIC’s office located at 201 South Alloy Drive, Fenton, Michigan 48430.” 2023 WL 6812297, at *3.Both responses were held to be inadequate. As to the first, the Court wrote that “federal courts nationwide have fairly unequivocally established that merely referring to a noticed deposition, either past or present, is an inappropriate means of answering an interrogatory.” An answer to an interrogatory should be “complete in itself.” Id. at *3 (citation omitted). Fed.R.Civ.P. 33(b)(3) mandates than an interrogatory must be answered “fully.” Subsection (d) permits a party to specify business records to review “if the burden of deriving or ascertaining the answer will be substantially the same for either party” and if the interrogating party is given information sufficient “to locate and identify them as readily as the responding party could….”Fed.R.Civ.P. 1 provides that the Rules “should be construed, administered, and employed by the court and the parties to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding.” The International Painters trilogy is an example of the Court doing just that. First, it offered an expedited process. Parties can live with a good call or a bad one, but they need the balls and strikes called promptly. Second, here the calls were all “good” and they were prompt.Nor were the open production timeline and change in location permitted. As to location: “Plaintiffs expressly asked that their requests for p

Civ. A. No. 19-cv-11020-ADB, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 88061, at *12 (D. Mass. May 6, 2021) (second and third alterations in original). After acknowledging that HealthEdge must "eventually respond to these requests," the court upheld HealthEdge's objection – pointing to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 33(a)(2)'s provision allowing the court to "order that such discovery requests not be responded to until later in the litigation."Id. at *12-13. The court then invited defendant Sharp to "renew these requests for production at the close of discovery, at which point HealthEdge shall respond."Id. at *13.

3 See Fed.R.Civ.P. 30(a)(2)(A)(1).4 See Fed.R.Civ.P. 33(a)(1).5 See Orentreich v. John B. Murray Architect, LLC, 2020 NY Slip Op. 32944(U) (NY County Index No. 650207/2019).

Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(a)(2); see “Navigating Fact Discovery in a Patent Case,” (July 1, 2020), available at https://www.fr.com/fish-litigation/navigating-fact-discovery-in-patent-case/. 19 C.F.R. §210.29(a). Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(a). 19 C.F.R. §210.32. Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(a)(3).See, e.g., Certain Sintered Rare Earth Magnets, Inv. No. 337-TA-855, Order No. 50 at 5 (Jan. 25, 2013); Certain Encapsulated Integrated Circuits, Inv. No. 337-TA-501, Order No. 17 at 2 (Mar. 22, 2004).

Finally, even to the extent that Defendant has attempted to lodge any untimely objections on the basis of privilege, it has failed to do so “with specificity” and to demonstrate “good cause” for its tardiness, as required by Rule 33(b)(4), and failed to “state whether any documents are being withheld on the basis of that objection[,]” as required by Rule 34(b)(2)(C).”Judge Patti also ordered the defendant (which had previously served unsigned responses to Plaintiff’s first set of interrogatories) to “serve signed, sworn responses to Plaintiff’s first set of interrogatories by February 19, 2019, without objections, all objections having been waived pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P 33(b)(4).” He also ruled on several specific discovery requests still at issue that had been agreed to at a hearing.Judge Patti also noted that “Rule 37 ‘provides generally for sanctions against parties or persons unjustifiably resisting discovery’” and stated that “Plaintiff is entitled to her reasonable expenses incurred in bringing her motion to compel, because the motion was necessary, Defendant’s failure to timely respond to discovery was not substantially justified, and there are no other circumstances that make an award of expenses unjust.

That said, even though a blanket waiver was not warranted, Magistrate Judge Baker did hold that plaintiff had waived several objections by failing to assert them in her response to the discovery requests. Id. at *2-*3 (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(b)(4), 34(b)(2)(A)-(C)). Magistrate Judge Baker next considered the format and scope of production related to defendants’ request for social media.

In addition, Rules 33 and 34 require specificity when responding to a discovery request. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 33(b)(4) (“The grounds for objecting to an interrogatory must be stated with specificity. Any ground not stated in a timely objection is waived unless the court, for good cause, excuses the failure.