Stemcell Technologies Canada Inc. v. StemExpress, LLC

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA San Francisco Division STEMCELL TECHNOLOGIES CANADA Case No. 21-cv-01594-VC (LB) INC., et al., 12 Plaintiffs, DISCOVERY ORDER 13 v. Re: ECF No. 74 14 STEMEXPRESS, LLC, et al., 15 Defendants. 16 INTRODUCTION The parties are biotech companies. StemExpress supplied cell products (sometimes referred to by the parties as “leukopak” products) to STEMCELL. The parties’ business relationship was governed by a contract that had confidentiality provisions. When the relationship ended, the parties sued each other for, among other claims, breach of contract. StemExpress also claimed that through STEMCELL’s quality audits, STEMCELL gained access to and misappropriated StemExpress’s trade secrets, in violation of the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act (CUTSA), to start its own competing business.1 The current discovery dispute is about the sufficiency of StemExpress’s designation of its trade secrets. STEMCELL’s main argument is…