Caddo Sys., Inc. v. Siemens Aktiengesellschaft (AG), No. 20 C 5927, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Oct. 20, 2021) (Cox, Mag. J.).

Magistrate Judge Cox granted plaintiffs’ Fed. R. Civ. P. 37 motion to compel, but limited plaintiffs’ questioning of defendants’ (collectively “Siemens”) Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6) corporate witness to two hours in this patent case.

The Court required that Siemens produce a corporate witness to testify as to communications between Siemens and third party Microsoft surrounding Microsoft’s license from plaintiffs. Siemens had previously withheld certain communications between Siemens’ and Microsoft’s in-house counsel sending Siemens the relevant license as work product. But upon review, the Court held that certain communications had no work product impressions and had to be produced. The Court, therefore, allowed a Rule 30(b)(6) corporate deposition of Siemens as to those emails and related communications. The Court did, however, limit the deposition to two hours of questioning to make the deposition more proportional to its value because the Court suspected Siemens had little or no additional information to provide beyond the document based upon statements from Siemens’ relevant in-house counsel.

The Court did not award plaintiffs their fees for bringing their motion to compel pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 27(b)(2) because Siemens’ refusal to provide the additional corporate witness testimony had not violated a Court order.