Opinion

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4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

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7 ORACLE AMERICA, INC., et al., Case No. 24-cv-07457-JST

8 Plaintiffs,

ORDER DENYING MOTIONS TO

9 v. SEAL

10 PROCORE TECHNOLOGIES, INC., et al., Re: ECF No. 285, 286

Defendants.

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13 Before the Court are a motion to seal and a motion to consider whether another party’s

14 material should be sealed, both filed by Defendant Procore. ECF Nos. 286, 285. Plaintiff Oracle

15 has filed a statement in support of sealing. ECF No. 290. The motions together seek to seal about

16 a thousand pages of documents in their entirety. Concluding that the sealing requests are

17 overbroad, the Court denies both motions and grants leave to file amended motions within seven

18 days of this order.

19 A party seeking to seal a document filed with the court must (1) comply with Civil Local

20 Rule 79-5; and (2) rebut the “a strong presumption in favor of access” that applies to all

21 documents other than grand jury transcripts or pre-indictment warrant materials. Kamakana v.

22 City & Cty. of Honolulu, 447 F.3d 1172, 1178 (9th Cir. 2006) (citation and internal quotations

23 omitted).

24 With respect to the first prong, Local Rule 79-5 requires, as a threshold, a request that

25 (1) “establishes that the document, or portions thereof, are privileged, protectable as a trade secret

26 or otherwise entitled to protection under the law”; and (2) is “narrowly tailored to seek sealing

27 only of sealable material.” Civil L.R. 79-5(b). An administrative motion to seal must also fulfill

1 allows a party to designate certain documents as confidential is not sufficient to establish that a

2 document, or portions thereof, are sealable.” Civil L.R. 79-5(d)(1)(A).

3 With respect to the second prong, the showing required to overcome the strong

4 presumption of access depends on the type of motion to which the document is attached. Records

5 attached to motions that are only “tangentially related to the merits of a case” are not subject to the

6 strong presumption of access. Ctr. for Auto Safety v. Chrysler Grp., LLC, 809 F.3d 1092, 1101

7 (9th Cir. 2016). Instead, a party need only make a showing under the good cause standard of Rule

8 26(c) to justify the sealing of the materials. Id. at 1097.

9 The two sealing motions do not satisfy this standard. Consider Exhibit 1, the expert report

10 of Andrew Crain. Procore explains that the document “contains highly confidential internal

11 Procore communications” and “confidential information regarding Procore’s business plans,

12 product development, strategies, and computer systems.” ECF No. 286 at 4. Oracle explains that

13 it contains “highly confidential information regarding Oracle’s trade secret files, pricing plans, and

14 business strategies.” ECF No. 290 at 3. Both parties aver that no less restrictive option is

15 available than sealing the document in its entirety. ECF No. 286 at 4; ECF No. 290 at 3. But the

16 expert report is a 71-page document that contains a multitude of information that does not relate to

17 business plans or strategies, trade secret files, or confidential communications, including, at a

18 minimum, the expert’s qualifications, his methodology, much of the account of the actions taken

19 by Mr. Mariano after departing Oracle, many of Mariano’s text messages, and most of the

20 discussion of his laptop metadata and usage history. In fact, a relatively small percentage of the

21 document appears related to the interests that the parties purportedly seek to protect. Redaction is

22 therefore more appropriate than sealing the document in full.

23 Exhibit 8, sought to be sealed only by Oracle, should also be redacted. While it may

24 contain “highly confidential Oracle information regarding Oracle’s trade secret files and business

25 strategies,” it also contains ample testimony that appears to bear no relationship to trade secrets or

26 business strategies. ECF No. 290 at 4; ECF No. 285-7.

27 As to Exhibits 4 and 5, comprised of more than 800 pages of interrogatory responses,

] Procore may refile both motions within seven days of this order, tailoring its sealing

2 || requests more narrowly and/or justifying them more fulsomely. To the extent that the parties

3 amend their sealing requests, they should submit new public and sealed copies of the underlying

4 || documents. For documents containing sealable information of both parties, the parties shall meet

5 and confer and submit a single redacted version of the document. The unsealed highlighted

6 || version shall distinguish between the sealing sought by each party using different colored

7 || highlighting.

8 IT IS SO ORDERED.

9 || Dated: May 1, 2026

10 JON S. TIGA!

11 United States District Judge

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