Plaintiff Arnett Facial Reconstruction Courses, Inc. filed suit against Defendant on August 23, 2011, alleging claims for: (1) infringement of U.S. Patent No. 5,951,498 (“Patent ‘498’ ”)—induced and contributory infringement, and (2) infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,200,278 (“Patent ‘278’ ”)—induced and contributory infringement. (Docket No. 1.) These parties are also engaged in ongoing litigation in Santa Barbara Superior Court (“State Case”) on related issues.

This Court granted Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment. (Docket No. 90.) As the prevailing party, Defendant timely submitted an Application to the Clerk to tax costs against Plaintiff. (Docket No. 103.) In its Bill of Costs Defendant sought a total of $92,276.72 in recoverable costs. (Docket No. 151.) The requested amount included: (1) $447.35 for service of process fees; (2) $7,101.26 for deposition fees; (3) $287.35 for witness fees; and (4) $84,440.76 for the costs of certification, exemplification, and reproduction of documents. (Id.)

Per Local Rule 54-2, the Clerk awarded Defendant $6,741.21 in costs. (Id.) The Clerk awarded the total requested amounts for the service of process fees and witness fees but awarded only $5,574.4 for the cost of depositions, and $432.10 for the cost of certification, exemplification, and the reproduction of documents. (Id.)

Defendant now moves to retax costs, seeking an additional $1526.85 in deposition costs and another $83,545.13 in electronic discovery costs. (Docket No. 152.) Plaintiff filed a “Statement re Defendant's Motion to Retax Costs,” attaching the Objection it previously filed with the Clerk. (Docket No. 154.) Defendant also moves to strike the Statement. (Docket No. 157.)

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d)(1) provides that “costs other than attorneys' fees shall be allowed as of course to the prevailing party unless the court otherwise directs.” The rule creates a strong presumption in favor of awarding costs to a prevailing party, but permits the district court discretion to refuse to award costs. Ass'n of Mexican-American Educators v. State of California, 231 F.3d 572, 591 (9th Cir. 2000).

Costs are limited to those set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 1920. Crawford Fitting Co. v. J.T. Gibbons, Inc., 482 U.S. 437, 442-43, 107 S. Ct. 2494, 96 L.Ed.2d 385 (1987). Section 1920 enumerates the expenses which may be taxed as costs, including, as relevant herein, (a) fees of the court reporter for all or any part of the stenographic transcript necessarily obtained for use in the case; and (b) fees for exemplification and copies of papers necessarily obtained for use in the case.

Pursuant to Local Rule 54-9, this Court's review of the Clerk's determination is limited to the record made before the Clerk and encompasses only those items specifically identified in the motion.

*2 At issue in this motion are the costs for Chester Wang's July 19, 2012 deposition (“Wang Deposition”) and electronic discovery (“eDiscovery”) costs. (Docket No. 152.) Together these two items account for $85,071.98 of the $92,276.72 originally sought by Defendant.

Local Rule 54-3.5(a) permits costs for “all depositions used for any purpose in connection with the case.” See also Kilopass Tech, Inc. v. Sidense Corp., C 10-02066 SI, 2013 WL 843104, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 6, 2013) (Illston, J.) (deposition costs were awardable to the prevailing party because “neutral questions of the deposition would have been asked in this case, regardless of the existence of any other case”); Hynix Semiconductor Inc. v. Rambus Inc., 697 F.Supp.2d 1139, 1148 (N.D. Cal. 2010) (Whyte, J.). Here, not only did the Wang Deposition address issues common to both the Federal and the State litigations, but Plaintiff relied extensively on the Wang Deposition in support of its Motion for Reconsideration in the Federal litigation. (See, e.g., Docket No. 97, at 14-15.) Accordingly, the Court GRANTS Defendant's Motion to Retax Costs as to the Wang Deposition.

In the Central District, Local Rule 54-3 elaborates on the requisites of Rule 54(d)(1), enumerating six categories of costs that may be taxed as “document preparation costs.” While the electronic discovery costs at issue are not enumerated, courts in this District have not limited recovery to these six categories. See In re Katz Interactive Call Processing Patent Litig., 07-ML-01816-B-RGK, 2009 WL 8635997, at *1 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 8, 2009)(Klausner, J.) (“[T]he list provided in Local Rule 54–4.11 is non-exhaustive and this Court may, in its discretion, allow other costs for copies.”); Tibble v. Edison Int'l, No. CV 07-5359 SVW AGRX, 2011 WL 3759927, at *7 (C.D. Cal. Aug 22, 2011) (Wilson, J.) (holding that costs were recoverable when the prevailing party was required to produce requested electronically stored information under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 26(b) and “defendant's costs were not accrued merely for the convenience of counsel, but were necessarily incurred in responding to Plaintiff's discovery request.”) The categories of eDiscovery costs approved in Tibble included all the costs at issue here. See also Tibble, No. CV07-05359 SVW, (Docket No 424.).

As in Tibble, the electronic discovery costs sought by Defendant were necessarily incurred in responding to Plaintiff's discovery requests in the Federal litigation. See also 28 U.S.C. § 1920 (taxing costs for “[f]ees for exemplification and the costs of making copies of any materials where the copies are necessarily obtained for use in the case.”) Plaintiff attempts to distinguish between costs incurred in the Federal litigation and costs incurred in the State litigation but this distinction is without a difference. (See Docket No. 104 at 9-12.) At oral argument, Defendant stated that all of the electronic discovery costs at issue were incurred in the course of producing documents in response to certain discovery requests, which were submitted as Exhibits 11 and 12 to the Declaration of Andrew Halaby in support of Defendant's Application to Tax Costs (“Halaby Decl.”). (Docket No. 150-2.)

*3 Exhibit 11 to the Halaby Decl. is a copy of Plaintiff's Request for Production of Documents to Defendant in the instant Federal litigation. (Halaby Decl., Ex. 11.) Exhibit 12 to the Halaby Decl. is a copy of Plaintiff's Request for Production of Documents to Defendant in the State litigation pending in Santa Barbara County Superior. (Id., Ex. 12.) These requests for production are nearly identical and the responsive documents produced by Defendant (for which Defendant now seeks to retax costs) necessarily were “obtained for use” in both the Federal and State requests. Accordingly, the Court GRANTS Defendant's Motion to Retax Costs as to its electronic discovery costs.

For the foregoing reasons, Defendant's Motion to Retax Costs is hereby GRANTED. Defendant's Motion to Strike is DENIED.

IT IS SO ORDERED.