01
May
By Eric Schweibenz
On April 27, 2012, ALJ Thomas B. Pender issued Order No. 6 in Certain Computing Devices With Associated Instruction Sets And Software (Inv. No. 337-TA-812).

In the Order, ALJ Pender denied a motion filed by Complainants VIA Technologies, Inc., IP-First, LLC, and Centaur Technology, Inc. (collectively, “Complainants”) to compel Respondent Apple Inc. to produce and identify relevant JPEG compression and decompression software source code responsive to Complainants’ discovery requests. 

According to the Order, Complainants’ motion failed to comply with ALJ Pender’s Ground Rule 5.1.2 which requires every motion to include a certification that “at least two business days prior to filing the motion, the moving party informed the other parties of its intent to file said motion and made reasonable, good-faith efforts to contact the other parties and resolve the matter.”  Specifically, ALJ Pender noted that Complainants’ motion merely stated that “[Complainants] sought the positions of the parties with respect to this motion,” and thus was “silent as to what effort, if any, it made to resolve the matter.”  ALJ Pender further noted that Complainants also failed to comply with his Ground Rule 5.4 which requires the moving party to schedule and participate in a telephone conference with the ALJ in order to resolve the discovery dispute prior to filing a discovery motion.  Accordingly, in light of the above, ALJ Pender denied Complainants’ motion to compel.