California law requires attorneys to "maintain inviolate the confidence, and at every peril to himself or herself to preserve the secrets, of his or her client." The jurisdiction is California. But the lawyers seek to weasel, asserting that federal law should apply, as patent suits are tried under federal statute, or the due process requires that federal law trump state law in this instance. So much for the concept of a republic.

Heller attorneys Hail Mary: "Due process of law requires that the Heller attorneys be able to fully and fairly defend the threat of sanctions from this court, which they cannot do absent a finding that the federal common law self-defense exception... applies to the [order to show cause]. Granting the exception, they claimed, would allow them to present "very compelling exonerating evidence" about the discovery proceedings.

Day Casebeer hesitated, only conditionally joining the motion because of the possibility of sanctions from the California State Bar Association.

Qualcomm, both motions noted, has steadfastly refused to waive attorney-client privilege.

Qualcomm's discovery cover was blown on the last day of trial when one of Qualcomm's witnesses referred to information in one of her emails, which she thought had been disclosed during discovery. Broadcom said the emails were unknown to them. Qualcomm produced the missing 130,000 documents after a verdict for Broadcom.

The emails went to a central issue in the case: whether Qualcomm had participated in developing an industry standard for which it had patent coverage. The court found that Qualcomm had, contrary to Qualcomm protestations of innocent error. In the aftermath, Qualcomm was stripped of those patents on video compression: 5,452,104 & 5,576,767.