Availink Inc. v. Texas Instruments, Inc, 5:25-mc-80119

This discovery dispute arose from a subpoena Availink, Inc. issued to non-party Texas Instruments, Inc. (TI) in a patent-related case involving HDMI Licensing Administrator, Inc. (HDMI LA) as plaintiff and Availink as defendant.
The subpoena sought both certain documents (agreements and correspondence between TI and HDMI LA) and a Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6) deposition from TI.
Fact discovery had formally closed in the primary action but Availink asserted a need for limited additional discovery from TI for trial preparation and admissibility purposes.
TI objected to both the timing of the subpoena and the breadth and relevance of the deposition topics; Availink had already received sufficient documents from HDMI LA and withdrew its demand for documents from TI.
The case was transferred from the Northern District of Texas to the Northern District of California after both parties agreed, and the miscellaneous discovery dispute was then referred to a magistrate judge.
The court’s analysis focused on balancing the scope, need, burden, and timing of the requested third-party discovery under Rules 26 and 45.

Issue (Concise)	Availink's Argument	TI's Argument	Held
Compel production of documents under subpoena	Already produced by HDMI LA, no longer pressing	No production necessary	Denied as moot; document subpoena quashed
Compel Rule 30(b)(6) deposition of TI	Relevant to interpretation and application of the Adopter Agreement and non-discriminatory treatment	Deposition unduly burdensome, late, overbroad, and seeks privileged matters	Granted-in-part; limited to specific factual, non-privileged topics, three-hour time limit
Timeliness of deposition subpoena post-discovery cutoff	Subpoena served before close; parties negotiated in good faith; limited post-cutoff discovery is reasonable	Discovery closed, improper timing	Overruled; allowed as clean-up, limited discovery
Scope of permissible deposition topics	Seeks factual, non-privileged information and business practices	Overbroad, seeks privileged/work-product information	Ordered Availink to specify non-privileged topics, prohibits questioning on privileged topics

Oppenheimer Fund, Inc. v. Sanders, 437 U.S. 340 (1978) (defining broad scope of discovery relevance)
Blankenship v. Hearst Corp., 519 F.2d 418 (9th Cir. 1975) (burden on party resisting discovery to show why it should be denied)
U.S. Fidelity & Guar. Co. v. Lee Inv. LLC, 641 F.3d 1126 (9th Cir. 2011) (district courts have broad discretion in controlling discovery)
Surfvivor Media, Inc. v. Survivor Prods., 406 F.3d 625 (9th Cir. 2005) (court discretion extends to crafting discovery orders, including relevance determination)