The parties to a patent infringement case found a creative use for SPO's. First, they settled the case. Next they agreed to a protective order that restrained them from talking about the settlement other than what the SPO provided they could talk about.
Well, as sometimes will happen, at least one defendant issued press releases after the settlement and after the trial judge, from the Northern District of California, entered the stipulated protective order which did not allow for the press releases, in basic and simple terms.
So, the trial judge found the defendant in contempt of the SPO which the judge had signed, making it his own. He awarded the plaintiff's counsel "'the full amount of [the plaintiff's] reasonable attorneys' fees and costs incurred in connection with those contempt proceedings and with their efforts to secure defendants' compliance with the [stipulated protective order]'[.]" Codexis, Inc. v. Enzymeworks, Inc., No. 2018-1655, 2019 WL 495165, at *2 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 8, 2019). He also ordered that defendant to retract the press releases and to issue a new statement which he, the trial judge, wrote for them.
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the rulings of the California District Judge in this case.
The moral of the story: Well there are two morals to this story, really. First, be creative when thinking about stipulated secrecy. Second, settle then get a stipulated secrecy order prohibiting anyone from saying anything about the settlement other than what the SPO allows them to say if anything.
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