District Court Determines No Common Interest Privilege For Communications With Litigation Funder

Plaintiff Midwest Athletics and Sports Alliance LLC ("MASA") filed a patent infringement action against Ricoh USA, Inc. ("Ricoh") alleging infringement of certain printing-related patents. Ricoh sought production of certain categories of documents that MASA contended were privileged and, therefore, not subject to disclosure. Ricoh contended that the documents are responsive to its requests, which seek documents related to MASA's acquisition of the patents from Kodak and various communications with litigation funding companies, for which MASA asserted a common interest privilege.

The district court explained that "the common interest doctrine protects parties, with shared interest in actual or potential litigation against a common adversary, from waiving their right to assert privilege when they share privileged information." Gelman v. W2 Ltd., No. 14-cv-6548, 2016 WL 8716248, at *3 (E.D. Pa. Feb. 5, 2016) (quotation omitted). Unlike joint representation, the common