Micron Tech., Inc. v. Rambus Inc., NO. 2009-1263, 2011 WL 1815975 (Fed. Cir. May 13, 2011) (Micron II); Hynix Semiconductor, Inc. v. Rambus Inc., Nos. 2009-1299, 2009-1347, 2011 WL 1815978 (Fed. Cir. May 13, 2011) (Hynix II)
Two federal courts analyzing nearly identical facts came to different conclusions regarding whether a party to both litigations had committed spoliation by destroying relevant documents. Specifically, the courts differed in their determinations of when the duty to preserve arose, which hinged on when litigation was reasonably foreseeable. One court issued significant sanctions and one court issued none. On appeal, the Federal Circuit sought to clarify the analysis of when the duty to preserve was triggered and remanded both cases for further consideration.
The facts of these cases have been summarized before and are available here (Micron I) and here (Hynix I). Nonetheless, some repetition is warranted. In the early 1990s, Rambus Inc. developed a method which “eliminated or minimized” a “bottleneck” in “the ability of computers to process growing amounts of data through the memory.” It was not the only method, however. In 1992 the founders of Rambus learned of one such alternative and came to believe that it was encompassed by their technology. Accordingly, a “two pronged business strategy” was developed, in which Rambus “licensed chip makers to manufacture chips that complied with Rambus’s proprietary RDRAM standards, and prepared to demand license fees and to potentially bring infringement suits against those manufacturers who insisted on adopting [competing technology] instead.” Beginning in 1998, a newly hired vice president was directed by Rambus’s CEO to “develop a strategy for licensing and litigation.” A critical component of that strategy was the development and implementation of a document retention policy. Pursuant to that policy, many documents, both electronic and paper, were destroyed, including all but one of Rambus’s email backup tapes and hundreds of boxes of paper documents, many of which were shredded at one of two company sponsored “shred days.”
