Plaintiff CIVIX-DDI (CIVIX) moved to disqualify Morrison & Foerster (MoFo) as Yahoo! litigation counsel, alleging that MoFo violated a protective order entered by the U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois.  (Read the full motion to disqualify here: Motion to Disqualify Counsel.)

The protective order expressly prohibited people “involved in ‘Patent Prosecution’ [to have] access to any CONFIDENTIAL Discovery Material or to any information directly derived from CONFIDENTIAL Discovery Material.”  The protective order defined patent prosecution to include “reexaminations of any of the patents asserted in the current litigation.”  In addition to serving as litigation counsel, MoFo also represents Yahoo! Inc. in a reexamination proceeding concerning the patents-at-issue in the litigation.

CIVIX contends that a MoFo attorney violated the Court’s protective order by participating in the reexamination proceedings before the PTO after participating in depositions designated as confidential.  MoFo also allegedly filed confidential declarations with the Court during a stay of the case, and later filed the same allegedly confidential declarations with the PTO.  MoFo may respond to CIVIX’s motion no later than October 8, 2009.  The case is CIVIX-DDI, LLC v. National Association of Realtors, et al., case number 1:05-CV-06869, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.