*1 For the reasons stated below, defendant's motion for a protective order (Dckt. #69) is granted in part and denied in part and plaintiffs' motion to compel related to defendant's failure to respond to interrogatories and requests for production (Dckt. #74) is granted in part and denied in part. Defendant shall respond to the interrogatories and requests for production permitted below by November 30, 2020.

STATEMENT

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs Inventus Power, Inc. and its subsidiary ICC Electronics (Dongguan) Ltd. bring suit against defendant Shenzhen Ace Battery Co., LTD (“Ace Power”) for trade secret misappropriation under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1836(b), 1839 et seq. and the Illinois Trade Secrets Act, 765 ILCS 1065 et seq. Both plaintiffs and Ace Power are in the business of designing and manufacturing advanced battery systems. In short, plaintiffs allege that Ace Power lured away eight of plaintiffs' senior engineers to work in senior positions at Ace Power (hereinafter, the “Employees.”) According to plaintiffs, before leaving to join Ace Power – and at Ace Power's direction – the Employees downloaded over 100,000 confidential and proprietary documents to USB thumb drives, which Ace Power is now using to create competing products.

Judge Dow granted plaintiffs' motion for a TRO and for expedited discovery on July 13, 2020. (Dckt. #48.) In granting plaintiffs' request for expedited discovery, Judge Dow specified that any expedited discovery “should be mutual, targeted to matters that will be addressed in a preliminary injunction hearing, and not duplicative of investigations that already have been made.” (Id. at pp. 30-31.) Judge Dow elaborated further that “inspections of devices used by the individuals in question while working for Defendant seems a highly logical place to focus attention in determining whether any of Plaintiffs' trade secrets have been disclosed to and used by Defendant.” (Id. at p 31.)

The expedited discovery process began amicably, with the parties agreeing to a schedule for discovery and the number of written discovery requests per side. (Dckt. #55 at p. 2.) The parties planned to continue conferring regarding document production protocols, deposition issues, and a neutral forensic examiner. (Id. at pp. 3-4.) Judge Dow adopted the parties' agreed schedule and even commended counsel and their clients for their professionalism in agreeing to a “sensible” discovery plan. (Dckt. #58.) Unfortunately, things quickly took a turn and multiple discovery disputes arose.[1]

Currently before the Court are defendant's motion for a protective order (Dckt. #69) and plaintiffs' motion to compel (Dckt. #74), both of which relate to the interrogatories and requests for production (“RFPs”) plaintiffs issued to defendant back on July 30, 2020. To date, defendant has not provided any responses to plaintiffs' discovery requests. Instead, defendant filed the instant motion for protective order, arguing that plaintiffs' requests “aim[ ] at the case-in-chief” and go well beyond the scope of Judge Dow's order permitting “mutual, targeted” expedited discovery relevant to preliminary injunction proceedings. (Dckt. #69 at p. 2.) Citing Judge Dow's comments above, defendant argues that expedited discovery should be focused on the inspections of the Employees' devices and “determining whether any of Plaintiffs' trade secrets have been disclosed to and used by Defendant.” (Id. at p. 3, quoting Dckt. #48 at p. 31). Defendant also asks the Court to permit RFPs only after the completion of the inspections.

*2 Plaintiffs quickly filed a competing motion to compel (Dckt. #74), asking the Court to compel defendant to fully respond to its written discovery requests. Plaintiffs also seek sanctions, particularly an order that defendant's failure to provide timely responses warrants waiver of any objections to the requests and attorneys' fees and costs in pursing the motion to compel. Following a motion hearing, and at the Court's direction, plaintiffs also filed a response to defendant's motion for protective order explaining how each interrogatory and RFP is targeted to preliminary injunction issues. (Dckt. #78.) Upon review of the parties' submissions and the discovery requests at issue, the Court finds that the majority of plaintiffs' discovery requests are within the scope of permitted expedited discovery and must be answered.

II. STANDARD

A party may file a motion to compel under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37 whenever another party fails to respond to a discovery request or when its response is insufficient. Fed.R.Civ.P. 37(a). Courts have broad discretion in resolving such disputes and do so by adopting a liberal interpretation of the discovery rules. Chicago Reg. Council of Carpenters Pension Fund v. Celtic Floor Covering, Inc., 316 F.Supp.3d 1044, 1046 (N.D.Ill. 2018). On the other hand, Rule 26(c) provides that a Court may, for good cause, issue an order to protect a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense. Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(c). The party seeking the protective order bears the burden of demonstrating why the order should be entered. Global Material Techs., Inc. v. Dazheng Metal Fibre Co., Ltd., 133 F.Supp.3d 1079, 1084 (N.D.Ill. 2015). To do so, the moving party must show “good cause” and explain why it will be subjected to “annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense” if a protective order is not entered. Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(c)(1); see also Citizens First Nat. Bank of Princeton v. Cincinnati Ins. Co., 178 F.3d 943, 944 (7th Cir. 1999).

III. ANALYSIS

A. Judge Dow's Order Does Not Limit Expedited Discovery Solely To Inspection Of The Employees' Devices.

At the outset, and as this Court already held at the August 27, 2020 hearing, any argument that Judge Dow limited discovery to the inspections of the Employees' computer devices is without merit. (See Dckt. 80 – Tr. of 8/27/20 Hr'g at p. 25 (“[T]his discovery is not simply going to be limited to an inspection of the work stations of those eight individuals, period.”)). Although Judge Dow opined that those devices are the “highly logical place” for the parties to focus their attention, he in no way limited discovery solely to the inspection of those devices. Indeed, the parties' own subsequent proposed discovery schedule (Dckt. #55) contemplated expedited discovery well beyond the device inspections, including interrogatories, RFPs, and depositions.

Similarly, and as the Court also explained to the parties at the August 27 hearing, there is no reason to stay responses to RFPs until after the device inspections are complete. (See Tr. of 8/27/20 Hr'g at pp. 26-27) (“Given the timeframe that we're working in, it's not reasonable to try to do this in [steps]...That's not the way we're going to do things here.”)). It is well settled that absent a stipulation or court order, “methods of discovery may be used in any sequence.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(d). Here, where the expedited discovery process has already been delayed for a number of reasons, the parties must move forward simultaneously with all forms of expedited discovery to bring the preliminary injunction proceedings to a head.[2] Accordingly, defendant's request to stay responses to plaintiffs' RFPs until after the inspections is denied.

B. Defendant Shall Fully Respond To The Discovery Requests Outlined Below That Seek Information Relevant To The Forthcoming Preliminary Injunction Proceedings.

*3 Apart from the misplaced argument regarding the limitation to the inspections, defendant does little to explain how each of plaintiffs' requests goes beyond the scope of the issues relevant to the preliminary injunction proceedings. Plaintiffs on the other hand have walked through each request explaining why – in their view – the request is narrowly tailored. To ensure that plaintiffs' requests are properly tailored in scope, the Court has independently reviewed each of the requests and Judge Dow's ruling on the TRO, which forecasts many of the preliminary injunction issues. See Old Republic Nat'l Title Ins. Co. v. Kensington Vanguard Nat'l Land Servs. of TX LLC, No. 3:17-CV-1014-D, 2017 WL 8677358, at *4 (N.D.Tex. July 7, 2017) (“The subject matter of expedited discovery should be narrowly tailored in scope.”) (citation omitted); see also Roche Diagnostics Corp. v. Med. Automation Sys., Inc., No. 1:10-CV-01718-SEB, 2011 WL 130098, at *3 (S.D.Ind. Jan. 14, 2011) (“[D]eciding whether to permit expedited discovery and the scope of any expedited discovery depends on the facts and circumstances of the particular matter, and a demonstration why the requested discovery, on an expedited basis, is appropriate for the fair adjudication of issues before the court.”).

The Court finds that the following requests – with certain limitations – are within the scope of permitted expedited discovery for purposes of the preliminary injunction proceedings:

Interrogatory Nos. 1 & 2 and RFP Nos. 3, 4 & 8: These requests seek the circumstances of each of the Employees' recruitment, hiring, and firing by Ace Power, the roles and responsibilities of the Employees at Ace, and the organizational structure at Ace, including the business units the Employees were involved in. This information is undoubtedly relevant to the forthcoming preliminary injunction proceedings. The Court notes, however, that plaintiffs' definition of “Ace Employees” is somewhat broad and goes beyond just the eight individuals at issue. (See Dckt. #74-2 at p. 2 – extending definition to include all agents of the eight Employees and any other individual who formerly worked for Inventus.) Accordingly, the Court will limit the definition of “Ace Employees” for purposes of all of plaintiffs' requests to mean the Employees (specifically, Jun (“Yancey”) Yang, Kui (“Gerrard”) Liu, Xinliang (“Robert”) Cao, Guochao (“Andy”) Quan, Gang (“Lucken”) Cai, Haihua (“Alan”) Liu, Jina (“Conner”) Guan, and Jingyang (“Paul”) Mai).

Interrogatory No. 3 and RFP Nos. 1 & 11: These requests seek information about the storage devices and “all documents” and/or ESI used, accessed, or accessible by the Employees. The storage devices and any other computer devices used by the Employees at Ace Power are certainly within the scope of expedited discovery as expressly contemplated by Judge Dow. However, as written, these requests are somewhat broad. The Court limits these requests to include only the storage devices or other computer devices utilized by the eight Employees at issue.

Interrogatory Nos. 6 & 9 and RFP Nos. 2, 7, 9 & 12: These requests seek information and documents as to how, when, and why Ace Power received, considered, used, or disclosed any confidential or trade secret information provided by or obtained from Inventus (through the Employees or any other person), and the basis for any contention by Ace Power why the information is not propriety and/or was not misappropriated. As foreshadowed by Judge Dow's TRO Opinion, this information goes to the heart of the issues that will be before the Court in the preliminary injunction proceedings. However, defendant need only answer these requests as to any confidential information obtained through the Employees (and not “any other person”) and need only identify five knowledgeable individuals in response to Interrogatory Nos. 6 and 9 (as opposed to ten).

Interrogatory No. 8 and RFP No. 10: Plaintiffs seek information related to three of Ace Power's Chinese Patents (defined as Chinese Patent Nos. CN210467927U, CN210272576U, and CN210272484U) that allegedly incorporate plaintiffs' trade secret information. This information will show how and why defendant may have used any of plaintiffs' proprietary data to compete with plaintiffs. (See Dckt. #48 at p. 25 – “The fact that Defendant applied for patents that allegedly incorporate Plaintiff's trade secret information further suggests that Defendant is competing in the same product market or making plans to do so.”).

*4 Interrogatory Nos. 4, 7 & 10 and RFP No. 7: With these requests, plaintiffs seek information regarding Ace Power's effort to preserve evidence in this case, including its compliance with the TRO, its own forensic investigation, and its document retention policies and procedures. Plaintiffs are entitled to discover whether the evidence relevant to this case, and particularly to the preliminary injunction proceedings, has been properly preserved by Ace Power.

At this time, defendant does not need to respond to the following requests: Interrogatory No. 5 and RFP No. 5 (seeking all communications between Ace and any Inventus customer or supplier); and RFP No. 13 (seeking all documents and communications relating to Ace's customers, suppliers and business partners, including broad financial information). The Court agrees that these requests are too broad in scope and go beyond the limited expedited discovery permitted by Judge Dow at this time. The Court further notes that such expanded discovery will likely be appropriate once the non-expedited phase of discovery ensues.

Lastly, having found that a handful of plaintiffs' requests exceeded the limited scope of discovery available at this time, the Court will not grant plaintiffs' request for sanctions. However, defendant is advised that it is expected to move forward expeditiously to fully and non-evasively respond to the discovery requests enumerated above without further objections apart from privilege objections, if any, by November 30, 2020. See, e.g., Zambrano v. Sparkplug Capital, LLC, No. 19 CV 100, 2020 WL 1847396, at *1 (N.D.Ill. Apr. 13, 2020) (finding that the failure to timely respond to discovery requests waived party's right to object to the requests) (citing cases). Failure to comply with the terms of this Order without justification will result in the imposition of sanctions.