GEORGE A. O'TOOLE, District Judge.
Caffeinate Labs, Inc. ("Caffeinate") and Vante Inc. and Alexander Shlaferman ("Vante") by and through their undersigned attorneys, hereby stipulate and agree to the following with regard to confidential matters in the above captioned lawsuit:
1. This Agreement governs all documents and information produced or to be produced by any party or third party in connection with this litigation, including documents and things produced or to be produced, any answers to interrogatories, responses to requests for admissions, and deposition and other testimony disclosed through discovery in this case (the "Subject Discovery Materials"). The Subject Discovery Materials will be used for no other purpose than this litigation.
2. "Confidential Information" as used herein means any type or classification of information in any of the Subject Discovery Materials which is designated as
3. Whenever the designating party determines that a disclosure of the Subject Discovery Materials will reveal matters that such party believes in good faith are not generally known or readily available to the public, and that such party deems to constitute proprietary information, confidential business or commercial information, and/or trade secrets relating to its business, such party has the right to designate such information as confidential. In the case of written information, this designation must be made by marking the page or pages where such Confidential Information is contained,
4. When the designating party has good reason to believe that disclosure of the Subject Discovery Materials should be limited to outside trial counsel for the Receiving Party because of its competitively sensitive nature, or for any other good reason, including, but not limited to, Subject Discovery Materials regarding, containing, reflecting, embodying or constituting product design, product specification, product sales, product volume, pricing, revenue, profit, costs, margins, customer lists, prospective customers, manufacturers, distributors, currently implemented or not yet implemented marketing or business plans, research and analyses, technical, manufacturing, and research and development information and plans for products not yet released to the marketplace, the designating party has the right to designate such Confidential Information as
5. In the case of a deposition or other testimony, testimony containing Confidential Information shall be designated
At any time during the taking of a deposition on oral examination, counsel for the designating party may state that a particular line of questioning should be treated as
6. If any non-designating party's counsel intends to use at trial, or for the purpose of any motion filed with the Court any documents, interrogatory answers, deposition testimony, or other discovery responses which have been designated as
7. All Subject Discovery Materials that are received by counsel for either party pursuant to pretrial discovery in this action that have been designated by the other party as containing or comprising Confidential Information pursuant to Paragraph 3 above ("
i. up to three (3) employees of each side whom outside counsel deems it necessary for the party employee(s) to review the information, document(s), or thing(s), on a strict need-to-know basis, in order for the employee(s) to assist outside counsel in this action, provided that no access shall be given until each such individual has executed a written Undertaking in the form attached hereto as
assisting such counsel, and stenographic, secretarial or clerical personnel employed by and assisting such counsel in this action;
iv. any court reporter or typist recording or transcribing testimony given in this action; and
v. outside experts subject to the terms of this Agreement as evidenced by the signing of a document in the form of
8. In the event that counsel for the Receiving Party finds it necessary to make a disclosure of Confidential Information pursuant to Paragraph 3 above to a person other than a Qualified Person, counsel for such party must, no less than ten (10) days in advance of such disclosure, notify the Producing Party's outside trial counsel in writing of:
The Producing Party's outside trial counsel has ten (10) days after receipt of the written notice within which to object in writing to the disclosure and, in the event objection is made, no disclosure will be made without Court Order. If no objection is made by the Producing Party's outside trial counsel, or if an Order of Court permits the disclosure, counsel for the Receiving Party must, prior to the disclosure, inform the individual to whom the Confidential Information is to be disclosed as to the terms of this Agreement, and have the individual acknowledge this in writing by signing a document in the form of
9. All Subject Discovery Materials that are received by counsel for either party pursuant to pretrial discovery in this action that have been designated by the other party as comprising or containing Confidential Information pursuant to Paragraph 4 above ("
a. outside trial counsel for the Receiving Party assigned to this action and who has filed an Appearance with the Court in this action, or otherwise represents a party or retained by a party as counsel (including attorneys, paralegals and office personnel in the ordinary course of assisting said outside counsel and that work in the same firm as said outside counsel); and
b. persons (including experts) who are not in the employ of a party and who are directly and actively assisting outside trial counsel for the parties in the preparation of this action; provided, however, that in the event that outside counsel for the Receiving Party finds it necessary to make a disclosure of Confidential Information to such persons under subparagraph (b) of this paragraph, counsel for such party must, no less than ten (10) days in advance of the disclosure, notify the Producing Party's outside trial counsel in writing of:
The Producing Party's outside trial counsel has ten (10) days after receipt of the written notice within which to object in writing to the disclosure and, in the event objection is made, no disclosure will be made without Order of the Court. If no objection is made by the Producing Party's outside trial counsel, or if an Order of Court permits the disclosure, counsel for the Receiving Party must, prior to such disclosure, inform the individual to whom the Confidential Information is to be disclosed as to the terms of this Agreement, and have the individual acknowledge this in writing by signing a document in the form of
10. Documents and things, or portions thereof, and discovery responses, or portions thereof, that the designating party in good faith believes contain
11. The designation of any document or thing as
12. The production of privileged or work-product protected documents, electronically stored information or information, whether inadvertent or otherwise, is not a waiver of the privilege or protection from discovery in this case or in any other federal or state proceeding. This Order shall be interpreted to provide the maximum protection allowed by Federal Rule of Evidence 502.
13. Nothing contained herein is intended to or shall serve to limit a party's right to conduct a review of documents, ESI or information (including metadata) for relevance, responsiveness, and/or segregation of privileged and/or protected information before production.
14. Termination of proceedings shall not relieve any person from the obligations of this Protective Order, unless the Court orders otherwise. With respect to any documents or things that have been filed with the Court under seal, upon termination of this action, the parties recognize that the ultimate disposition of any such documents or things, including all copies or summaries of, or excerpts from, such documents which may have been made, shall be as directed by the Court. The parties shall not oppose efforts to show good cause to maintain such materials and documents as sealed or to remove such materials and documents from the Court record. Except as described below, within sixty (60) days after the final adjudication of this case including appeals, or resolution through settlement, unless otherwise agreed to in writing by an attorney of record for the designating party, each party to this action shall either (a) assemble and return all information, documents and things designated as
15. During the pendency of this litigation, including all appeals, and for a period of one year following conclusion of this litigation, any person who reviews information designated as
16. If a Producing Party inadvertently produces to a Receiving Party any document that it deems confidential without designating it as Confidential Information, upon discovery of such inadvertent disclosure, the Producing Party must promptly inform the Receiving Party in writing, and the Receiving Party shall thereafter treat the document as Confidential Information under this Stipulation.
17. Neither party is obligated to challenge the propriety of any Subject Discovery Materials designated as Confidential Information, and a failure to do so in this action does not preclude a subsequent challenge to the propriety of the designation. However, if at any time during this litigation the Receiving Party claims that the Producing Party or a non-party has unreasonably designated certain information as "Confidential" or "Confidential: Attorneys' Eyes Only" or believes that it is necessary to disclose designated information to persons other than those permitted by this Agreement, the Receiving Party must notify the Producing Party (and all other parties to the action) in writing that the Receiving Party objects to the designation and the reasons therefore within ten (10) days of such notification. The parties shall meet and confer in an attempt to resolve the Receiving Party's objection to the designation. If that attempt at resolution fails, the Receiving Party may seek relief from the Court.
18. This Agreement shall not preclude any party from using or disclosing any of its own documents or materials for any lawful purpose.
19. The parties agree to submit this Stipulation to the Court promptly for its approval, but further agree that, prior to approval by the Court, this Stipulation will be effective between them as if approved.
I, ____________________________, hereby declare under penalty of perjury that:
I confirm that I have read the Stipulation of Confidentiality and Protective Order (the "Stipulation") entered in this case.
I hereby confirm that:
a. I will maintain the confidentiality of the Confidential Information in accordance with the Stipulation, and will use, store and maintain such documents in accordance with the Stipulation so as to prevent the disclosure of such Confidential Information to any unauthorized person.
b. I will use any Confidential Information imparted to me solely for the purpose of the above litigation, and I will make no commercial use or any other litigation or non-litigation use of any part of such Confidential Information and shall not assist or permit any other person to do so.
c. Upon the earlier of: (i) demand of counsel of record for the party who supplied the Confidential Information to me or (ii) within 30 days after the final termination of instant litigation, including appeal, I will return all Confidential Information and all copies thereof, including all notes, abstracts, summaries and memoranda relating thereto which contain any of the substance thereof, to the person or party from whom I received the Confidential Information.
I agree to be fully bound by the Stipulation and I hereby submit to the jurisdiction of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts for purposes of enforcement of the Stipulation and this undertaking.