Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Stratasys, Inc. sued multiple defendants—Shenzhen Tuozhu Technology Co. Ltd., Shanghai Lunkuo Technology Co. Ltd., BambuLab Ltd., and Tuozhu Technology Limited—for patent infringement across 124 patent claims involving 10 accused products. To protect defendants’ confidential source code during discovery, the parties stipulated to a protective order limiting each party to printing no more than 300 unique pages of source code material.
Defendants had represented that the 300-page limit would be “more than sufficient” for the scope of litigation. However, during discovery, defendants produced more than 350,000 source code files. Faced with this massive discrepancy between the initial representation and actual production volume, Stratasys moved to increase the printout limit to 3,000 pages. Defendants countered with a motion to amend the protective order to 500 pages, arguing Stratasys had failed to show good cause for a tenfold increase.
The Court’s Holding
The court granted defendants’ motion as modified, increasing the source code printout limit to 1,200 pages—a middle-ground compromise. Applying the four-factor Raytheon test for modifying stipulated protective orders, the court found that while both parties understood the case’s scope when they agreed to the original 300-page limit, Stratasys could not have foreseen the volume of source code defendants would produce, particularly given defendants’ explicit representations that 300 pages would suffice.
The court rejected both extremes: Stratasys’s request for 3,000 pages exceeded what the court found justified, as Stratasys cited no precedent supporting a tenfold increase, and defendants’ counteroffer of 500 pages was insufficient given the 350,000-file production. The 1,200-page limit represents approximately 0.34 percent of the source code produced—a conservative increase addressing the unforeseen volume while protecting defendants’ legitimate confidentiality interests.
Key Takeaways
- Protective orders are subject to modification under FRCP 26(c) when unforeseen circumstances—particularly changed production volumes—warrant adjustment.
- A party’s initial consent to discovery limitations does not preclude later modification if actual production vastly exceeds the parties’ representations and expectations.
- Courts balance good cause for modification against fairness and reliance interests, often adopting middle-ground solutions rather than adopting either party’s position.
- Parties should avoid misrepresenting the scope of forthcoming production, as courts will consider inaccurate representations when evaluating modification requests.
Why It Matters
In technology patent cases involving complex software, massive source code production can render initial protective order terms impractical. When defendants represent that a page limit is adequate but then produce hundreds of thousands of files, courts recognize the mismatch and permit reasonable expansion. This decision signals that plaintiffs need not be bound by initial discovery agreements when the opponent’s production volumes are orders of magnitude beyond what was anticipated.
For practitioners, the decision underscores the importance of carefully crafting protective orders for tech cases and avoiding underestimates of source code scope. Courts will grant relief when initial assumptions prove drastically wrong, but they will do so incrementally and with an eye toward the fairness of the modification itself. The 1,200-page compromise—less than one percent of produced files—suggests courts may allow material increases where actual production vastly exceeds initial representations.