Prism Technologies, LLC v. Adobe Systems, Inc.

Prism Technologies, LLC (Prism) (plaintiff) filed a claim in the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska for patent infringement asserting its patent was infringed by Adobe Systems, Inc.; Autodesk, Inc.; McAfee, Inc.; National Instruments Corp.; Sage Software, Inc.; Symantec Corp.; The Mathworks, Inc.; and Trend Micro, Inc. (collectively, the software companies) (defendants). In response to Prism’s broad requests for discovery, the software companies filed a motion for a protective order to limit Prism’s scope of discovery. The software companies argued that Prism could not request discovery regarding possible infringement that did not include a CD-ROM or possible infringement that occurred in a manner other than the sale of infringing products. The software companies also argued that Prism was limited in its discovery requests to information about the products Prism accused in its first response to interrogatories or products reasonably similar to those accused. Prism’s interrogatory answers, complaint, and comments in court did not suggest that Prism intended to limit its theories of infringement to claims involving a CD-ROM or the sale of infringing products. In its complaint, Prism stated that each software company infringed on Prism’s patent rights by “making, using, selling, or offering to sell” the infringing products. Patent-case discovery in Nebraska was not governed by any local rules.