Hewlett-Packard Co. v. EMC Corp.

ORDER DENYING MOTION TO DISQUALIFY EXPERT WITNESS

Defendant moves to disqualify Plaintiffs’ expert witness. Plaintiffs oppose the motion. The Court has read the moving and responding papers and has considered the oral arguments presented by counsel at the hearing on May 10, 2004. For the reasons set forth below, the motion will be denied.

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs Hewlett-Packard Company et al. (“HP”) filed suit against Defendant EMC Corporation (“EMC”) on September 30, 2002, alleging infringement of several of the claims of seven patents. EMC counterclaimed, alleging that HP infringed several of the claims of five of EMC’s patents. The patents at issue generally relate to devices, systems, and methods for storing or backing up electronic data on memory systems. The parties intend to use expert witnesses to describe the claimed inventions and the underlying technology in their pretrial motions as well as at trial.

EMC asserts that HP’s expert witness Randy Katz (“Katz”) must be disqualified because he allegedly “previously served as a consultant for EMC, at which time he received confidential information on EMC’s trial strategies relating to one of the patents in suit.” Motion…