Part of every interference are a variety of housekeeping matters which, while not dispositive, are important to recognize for their effects (or potential effects) on the proceedings. Some are simple matters: for example, on October 28th, the Board granted the Broad's request for authorization to file a Reply to CVC's (the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Vienna; and Emmanuelle Charpentier) opposition to the Broad's Substantive Motion No. 1 (which the Broad filed on November 4th), and CVC filed its revised protective order on November 7th, pursuant to the Board's earlier authorization.
More recently, the Board issued an Order denying CVC relief requested on two grounds. First, CVC requested authorization to file a sur-reply to Broad's reply to CVC's opposition to Broad's Motion No. 1. The Board denied this motion for now, saying that it could reconsider after it had had the opportunity to review the Broad's motion, CVC's Opposition, and the Broad's Reply. This result logically followed from the grounds CVC asserted in support of its sur-reply request, including that the Broad in its reply had mischaracterized CVC's arguments in its Opposition.
The Board also denied CVC's request for a conference call to compel Broad to produce a witness for cross-examination. The Order referred to the opportunity for CVC to file a Motion to Exclude Evidence at Time Period 5, which would dispose of the matter. In noting this opportunity, the Board certainly sent a message to the Broad that the testimony of this witness could be put in jeopardy should it continue to resist.
Also on the issue of depositions, the Board on November 22nd issued an Order mediating a dispute between the parties on the amount of time each party will get for deposition. The witnesses for each party are as follows:
Broad witnesses, relied upon for Motion Nos. 2, 3, and 4:
• Seeger 161 pg declaration (Exhibit 3401)
• Beaker 48 pg declaration (Ex. 3403)
CVC witness, relied upon for Motions 1 and 2:
• Peterson first declaration 169 pg (Ex. 4036)
second declaration 153 pg (Ex. 4189)
The parties agreed that the Broad will make each witness available for seven hours of deposition, for a total of fourteen hours. The Broad wanted twelve hours to depose CVC's witness and CVC objected, requesting the Board grant the Broad seven hours equal to the time each of the Broad's witnesses would sit for deposition. The Board ordered that each party would have the same amount of time for deposition without regard to the number of witnesses. The Board's reasoning was that the Broad was not responsible for CVC's choice to put forth one witness and, for seemingly practical reasons, the number of pages for CVC's lone declarant exceeded by about 100 pages the combined declarations of the Broad's two witnesses.
Finally, for now, on November 20th CVC provided an updated Notice of Related Proceedings, informing the Board and the Broad of the following newly granted patents (as well as additional pending applications), none of which are involved in this interference:
10,301,651 (USSN 14/685,504); 10,227,611 (USSN 14/042,782); 10,407,697 (USSN 15/435,233); allowance of USSN 15/803,424; 10,385,360 (USSN 15/925,544); 10,421,980 (USSN 16/033,002); 10,415,061 (USSN 16/033,005); 10,308,961 (USSN 16/033,016); 10,358,658 (USSN 16/201,836); 10,337,029 (USSN 16/201,848); 10,351,878 (USSN 16/201,855); 10,400,253 (USSN 16/276,343); 10,428,352 (USSN 16/276,348); 10,443,076 (USSN 16/276,356); 10,487,341 (USSN 16/277,090); allowance of USSN 16/380,758; allowance of USSN 16/380,781; AND allowance of USSN 16/382,093.
