District Court’s Discretionary Orders Cannot Be Challenged Through Interlocutory Appeal

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied a petition for a writ of mandamus to direct the district court to issue a protective order conditionally staying the depositions of petitioners’ CEOs. In re Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., Case No. 07-M847 (Fed. Cir., Mar. 27, 2007) (Prost, J.) (non-precedential).

In a patent infringement suit filed against AMD and others, Tessera sought deposition of AMD’s three CEOs. AMD moved for a protective order on the ground that its CEOs did not have any unique knowledge pertaining to the matter that could not be discovered by less intrusive methods of discovery. A special master denied the motion, and the district court later denied AMD’s objection to the special master’s order. AMD petitioned for a writ of mandamus for an interlocutory review of the district court’s order.