*1 THIS CAUSE is before the Court on Defendant's Motion to Compel Production of Documents and Memorandum of Law in Support (“Motion”) (Doc. 140), and Plaintiff's response in opposition thereto (“Response”) (Doc. 141). Upon consideration of the parties’ submissions and for the reasons stated herein, the Motion is due to be DENIED.

I. Background[1]

Plaintiff initiated this patent infringement claim against Defendant on February 13, 2015. On September 24, 2015, Defendant served Plaintiff with its First Request for Production of Documents, to which Plaintiff responded on December 5, 2015. (See Docs. 140-1 & 140-3 at 1.) On March 30, 2016, the Court granted Defendant's motion to dismiss Plaintiff's Amended Complaint and, on November 17, 2016, denied Plaintiff's motion for leave to amend. (Docs. 59 & 71.) Plaintiff appealed the Court's orders, and, on June 7, 2018, the case was remanded to this Court after the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the Court's dismissal of Plaintiff's Amended Complaint and reversed the Court's denial of Plaintiff's motion for leave to file a Second Amended Complaint. (See Doc. 82 at 1-2.) The parties resumed the discovery process after the case was remanded. (See Doc. 140 at 1.) On February 24, 2019, the Court held a Markman Hearing. (Doc. 133.) On March 19, 2019, the Court extended the fact discovery deadline to May 20, 2019. (Doc. 137.) The parties asserted that they “completed fact discovery in accordance with the Amended [Second Case Management and Scheduling Order] ... [w]ith the exception of the issues raised by both parties in [the] pending Motions to Compel before the Court and the agreed limited continuance of the Aatrix 30(b)(6) deposition.” (Doc. 153 at 1; see also Docs. 140, 142, & 144.)

In its Motion, Defendant seeks to compel Plaintiff to produce responsive documents to its First Set of Requests for Production, specifically, Request Nos. 1, 3, and 4. (Doc. 140.) Defendant claims it requested the following:

*2 (Id. at 3.) According to Defendant, Plaintiff provided the following response to Request Nos. 3 and 4:

(Id.) Defendant also notes that Request Nos. 3 and 4 “are not expressly limited to the production of [source] code,[2] and indeed request a wide array of non-code documents, such as documents related to the Aatrix Forms Designer, the Payroll Series software package, and other non-code documents related to the Patents-in-Suit,” including “relevant notebooks, log books, reports, and the like related to the development, reduction to practice or testing of any subject matter described or claimed in the Patents-in-Suit or any Related Patents.” (Id. at 4.)

Albeit in a footnote, Defendant also claims that Plaintiff failed to provide responsive documents to Request No. 1, requesting: “All documents identified or relied on in your initial disclosures under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(a), your interrogatory responses or your responses to requests for admission in this case.” (Id. at 5 n.1; see also 140-1 at 3.) In its response, Plaintiff stated that:

(Doc. 140-1 at 3.) Defendant now claims that although Plaintiff agreed to produce responsive documents, it also “failed to produce documents responsive and related to Defendant's prior Interrogatory Nos. 4 and 5 of Defendant's First Set of Interrogatories to Plaintiff.”[3] (Doc. 140 at 5 n.1.)

Defendant asserts that Plaintiff has only produced financial documents, and has “failed and refused to produce a whole host of non-code documents that fall squarely within the responsive call of Request Nos. 3 and 4, including but not limited to” the following documents:

(Id. at 4.)

According to Defendant, Plaintiff produced 15,517 documents, totaling 624,770 pages, but failed to produce any documents in response to Request Nos. 3 and 4. (Id. at 5.) Defendant also claims that on March 21, 2019, Plaintiff supplemented its production of documents with an additional 7,103 documents, but still failed to provide responsive documents to Request Nos. 3 and 4. (Id.) Defendant notes a purported “complete lack of any technical documents related to the period [from] 1995 to 2002, which is the period where Plaintiff claims the inventions were under development.” (Id.) Although Plaintiff asserted it had produced all responsive documents to Defendant's First Request for Production of Documents, with the exception of source code, Defendant alleges that “a simple search of publicly-available information archived from Plaintiff's own website indicates that there is, in fact, documentation responsive to Defendant Request Nos. 3 and 4.” (Id. at 6.) Defendant argues that Plaintiff failed to produce documents that “could go to show that Plaintiff did in fact release early versions of their product, calling into question whether a statutory bar to Plaintiff's claims exists.” (Id.) Defendant also claims that the “expansive view of claim terms argued by Plaintiff at the Markman hearing on February 27, 2019” make the requested information and materials all the more necessary. (Id.) Defendant argues that Plaintiff also ignored its request to identify the individuals involved in searching for responsive materials, in order to “investigate by deposition the efforts made and why the documents are not available to be produced.” (Id. at 7.) Finally, Defendant argues that the requested discovery materials “that are non-code and relate to Plaintiff's Patents-in-Suit and any Related Patents ... are clearly relevant and proportional to the needs of the case.” (Id. at 8.)

*4 Plaintiff, on the other hand, counters that, “[t]o the extent Defendant's Motion seeks non-code design development documents, it seeks something that does not exist.”[4] (Doc. 141 at 4.) Plaintiff alleges it has “told Defendant's counsel, repeatedly, that except for notes and the like in the source code itself, all design and development documents that existed when this litigation commenced, have been produced” and “[t]here are no others to be produced.” (Id. at 2.) According to Plaintiff, Defendant's request for “design and development documents”[5] is only relevant as to prior art and to documents that “pre-date the prior art ‘critical date’ [of] March 26, 2001.” (Id. at 1 (footnote omitted).) Plaintiff also argues that Defendant's Motion is “extremely untimely” since it seeks to compel the production of documents “to three of the forty requests Aatrix responded to three years ago.” (Id. at 5, 12.) Plaintiff claims that “to bring these issues up only at the close of discovery, and in the middle of the depositions of Greenshades's own employees, is unjustified[,]” and that Defendant's failure to bring its Motion to Compel within a reasonable time period warrants its denial. (Id. at 12-14.)

Additionally, Plaintiff claims it re-reviewed documents captured in 2016 and produced “a handful of very old product manuals, which Defendant[ ] had not identified as being of interest in 2016, but little else over and above the 660,000 pages of documents previously produced.”[6] (Id. at 11.) Plaintiff argues that the large numbers of design and development documents it is purportedly withholding from Defendants “simply never existed” and explains that:

(Id.) Plaintiff also argues that it had a similar growth trajectory as Defendant, and as Matthew Kane, co-CEO of Defendant, testified, “until the last 4 or 5 years, [Defendant] was a small company, and it did not need and did not generate any design development documents.” (Id.) Thus, Plaintiff argues, “it is disingenuous for Defendant to assert it has no such documents, and then falsely accuse Plaintiff of withholding [discovery].” (Id.)

In response to Defendant's argument that material from Plaintiff's archived website shows it withheld responsive materials that could demonstrate that Plaintiff released “early versions of their product, calling into question whether a statutory bar to Plaintiff's claims exists[,]” Plaintiff counters that the website cited by Defendant “is not within Aatrix's possession, custody, or control” and “the purported date appearing on the non-party webpage is 1997, twenty-two years ago and eighteen years before this litigation.” (Id. at 19.) Plaintiff also claims that “Defendant's citation does not demonstrate that responsive documents, if they ever did exist, still exist and were within Aatrix's control as of the filing of this action.” (Id.) Plaintiff asserts that it has not withheld responsive discovery materials to Request Nos. 1, 3, and 4, other than “the source code documents which [Defendant] said were unnecessary and irrelevant.” (Id.)

II. Standard

*5 It is clear that the parties may obtain discovery:

Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). The rules “strongly favor full discovery whenever possible.” Farnsworth v. Procter & Gamble Co., 758 F.2d 1543, 1547 (11th Cir. 1985). “The discovery process is designed to fully inform the parties of the relevant facts involved in their case.” United States v. Pepper's Steel & Alloys, Inc., 132 F.R.D. 695, 698 (S.D. Fla. 1990) (citing Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 501 (1947)). “The overall purpose of discovery under the Federal Rules is to require the disclosure of all relevant information so that the ultimate resolution of disputed issues in any civil action may be based on a full and accurate understanding of the true facts, and therefore embody a fair and just result.” Oliver v. City of Orlando, No. 6:06-cv-1671-Orl-31DAB, 2007 WL 3232227, at *1 (M.D. Fla. Oct. 31, 2007) (citing United States v. Procter & Gamble Co., 356 U.S. 677, 682 (1958)). Discovery is intended to operate with minimal judicial supervision unless a dispute arises and one of the parties files a motion requiring judicial intervention. Furthermore, “[d]iscovery in this district should be practiced with a spirit of cooperation and civility.” Middle District Discovery (2015) at 3.

Motions to compel discovery under Rule 37(a) are committed to the sound discretion of the trial court. See Commercial Union Ins. Co. v. Westrope, 730 F.2d 729, 731 (11th Cir.1984). The trial court's exercise of discretion regarding discovery orders will be sustained absent a finding of abuse of that discretion to the prejudice of a party. See Westrope, 730 F.2d at 731. The party bringing a motion to compel discovery “bears the burden of demonstrating that the information it seeks is relevant.” Costa v. Metro. Life. Ins. Co., No. 6:17-cv-714-Orl-40TBS, 2018 WL 1635642, at *2 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 5, 2018). For the Court to be able to rule on a motion to compel, it must “be specifically targeted to specific requests and must have reasons why the motion should be granted.” Newman v. Sun Capital, Inc., No. 2:09-cv-445-FtM-29SPC, 2010 WL 11470980, at *1 (M.D. Fla. Jan. 15, 2010).

“A party objecting to a request for production must: (1) ‘state with specificity the grounds for objecting to the request, including the reasons;’ (2) ‘state whether any responsive materials are being withheld on the basis of that objection;’ and (3) ‘[a]n objection to part of a request must specify the part and permit inspection of the rest.’ ” Local Access, LLC v. Peerless Network, Inc., No. 6:17-cv-236-Orl-40TBS, 2018 WL 2938393, at *2 (M.D. Fla. June 12, 2018) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 34(b)(2)). “The rules leave no place for boilerplate style objections.” Id. (citations omitted). Local Rule 3.04(a) provides:

M.D. Fla. R. 3.04(a). Local rules “have the force of law,” Hollingsworth v. Perry, 558 U.S. 183, 190 (2010) (internal quotations and citation omitted), and “[t]he importance of these Rules cannot be overstated.” U.S. v. Fleming, No. 3:09-cv-153-J-34TEM, 2010 WL 5128293, at *1 (M.D. Fla. Dec. 10, 2010).

III. Discussion

First, the undersigned is unpersuaded by Plaintiff's argument that Defendant's requests and Motion were untimely. A court's decision as to whether a party has waived its challenge to a discovery violation, by failing to address the violation when first discovered, is discretionary. Goers v. L.A. Entertainment Group, Inc., No. 2:15-cv-412-FtM-99CM, 2017 WL 2578649, at *3 (M.D. Fla. June 14, 2017) (internal citations omitted). “In considering the timeliness of a motion to compel or for sanctions, the Court considers such factors as when the movant learned of the discovery violation, how long he waited before bringing it to the court's attention, and whether discovery has been completed.” (Id.) (citations and internal quotations omitted). Although Plaintiff refers to a three-year delay in Defendant's efforts to obtain the discovery materials at issue, the delay between the issuance of the initial request for discovery and Defendants more recent efforts to obtain responsive documents from Plaintiff is more appropriately attributed to the procedural posture of the case, including the lengthy intervening appeal period, rather than undue delay on Defendant's part.

Nevertheless, based on Plaintiff's assertions that it has conducted additional searches and produced all responsive non-source code documents, it appears that Plaintiff has complied with Defendant's Request Nos. 1, 3 and 4. The Court cannot compel Plaintiff to produce that which does not exist. As Plaintiff explained, it was a small company in the period before 2002, “the time period that Defendant argues is most relevant in its belated motion, and development work was not performed by committees numbering in hundreds of people.” (Id. at 17.) Instead, Plaintiff only had “a handful of employees, and accordingly, the development and programming work was not memorialized or reflected in formal developer's notes and programmer's comments.” (Id.) According to Plaintiff, “[i]nstead of talking about it in endless committee meetings, the problems recognized and confronted by Aatrix during its product development were informally worked out, not via formal documentation.” (Id. at 18.)

Notwithstanding Defendant's skepticism regarding Plaintiff's position in this regard, the Court cannot compel Plaintiff to produce documents that it claims it does not have. See, e.g., Thermoset Corp. v. Building Materials Corp. of America, No. 4-60268-CIV, 2014 WL 6473232, at *4 (S.D. Fla. Nov. 18, 2014) (“The Court agrees that it cannot compel a party to provide information or produce documents that it does not have in its possession, custody, or control.”) (citations omitted); see also Calhoun v. Volusia Cnty., No. 6:04-cv-106-Orl-31DAB, 2007 WL 1796259, at *1 (M.D. Fla. June 20, 2007) (“[T]he Court cannot compel production of documents that do not exist.”).

*7 Furthermore, in light of the legitimate concerns raised by Plaintiff and the well-reasoned arguments made in response to the Motion, the undersigned finds that Plaintiff was substantially justified so as to deny Defendant's request for costs under Rule 37. See, e.g., Suboh v. Bellsouth Bus. Sys., Inc., No. 1:03-cv-0996-CC-CCH, 2004 WL 5550100, at *11 (N.D. Ga. Nov. 17, 2004) (declining to award attorney's fees because “[t]he Court conclude[d] that Defendant was, in part, substantially justified in refusing to produce some of the material requested by Plaintiff.”).

Accordingly, it is ORDERED:

Defendants’ Motion (Doc. 140) is DENIED.

DONE AND ORDERED in Jacksonville, Florida, on November 19, 2019.