Page 1 of 5
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Civil Action No. 07-cv-00630-DME-MEH
NETQUOTE INC, a Colorado corporation,
Plaintiff,
v.
BRANDON BYRD, an internet user making use of the IP Addresses 64.136.27.226 and
64.136.26.227, and
MOSTCHOICE.COM, Inc., a Georgia corporation
Defendants.
REPLY BRIEF
COMES NOW, Mostchoice.com, Inc. and files this its Reply Brief to the Response filed
by Netquote to Plaintiff’s Motion for Relief from the protective order and shows this Court the
following:
I. Netquote Attempts to Misdirect the Issue
Netquote’s claim that Mostchoice should have to utilize the process set forth in the
protective order before the Court can consider the constitutional issue misses the point of
Mostchoice’s motion. The issue is not whether every document has been properly designated as
attorney’s eyes only. Certainly, Mostchoice does contend that Netquote (as anticipated) was in
fact the proverbial fox allowed to guard the hen house by over-designating documents as
Attorneys Eyes Only. This designation has been described as being “for a small discrete group of
"extremely confidential" documents within the larger category of confidential materials. It was
Netquote Inc. v. Byrd
Doc. 162
Dockets.Justia.com
Page 2 of 5
never intended to be the most frequently used designation. Rather, it was intended to be used for
extremely sensitive trade secrets and, thus, to be used sparingly.” THK Am. v. NSK Co., 157
F.R.D. 637, 641 (D. Ill. 1993). In other words, this designation is properly left to trade secrets
akin to the Colonel’s secret recipe or the formula for Coca Cola, and not mundane and routine
documents.
However, the fundamental problem that has arisen is that by designating virtually every
relevant document as Attorneys Eyes Only, the protective order as applied to Mostchoice in this
case, has deprived it of the ability to assist its counsel in its own defense, and will result in
Mostchoice being unfairly surprised at trial, without regard to whether the designations