The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently decided a case involving the standards for determining when documents produced pursuant to a protective order in litigation in a United States federal district court can be used in litigation in foreign countries. In re Posco, __ F.3d __, 2015 WL 4461027 (Fed. Cir. July 22, 2015).
In that case, Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation sued Posco in federal court in New Jersey for patent infringement. The district court entered a protective order that provided in pertinent part that confidential materials “shall be used by the receiving Party solely for purposes of the prosecution or defense of this action.” Posco produced several million pages of documents containing confidential information pursuant to the protective order. Id. at *1.