SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
COUNTY OF SANTA CLARA
PROPOUNDING AND RESPONDING COUNSEL
Propounding Counsel:
CALDERWOOD & HARKNESS LLP 555 California Street, 40th Floor San Francisco, California 94104 Telephone: (415) 555-8200 Facsimile: (415) 555-8201
Marcus Delgado, Responsible Partner Catherine Bloom, Billing Partner Wendy Schultz, Lead Associate Omar Siddiqui, Working Associate
Attorneys for Plaintiff Lumos Analytics Inc.
Responding Party's Counsel of Record:
WHITFIELD, RAINES & GERBER LLP 235 Montgomery Street, Suite 1800 San Francisco, California 94104 Telephone: (415) 555-3400 Facsimile: (415) 555-3401
Patricia Whitfield, Lead Partner Samuel Gerber, Senior Associate
Attorneys for Defendants NovaSpark Technologies Inc., Rajiv Anand, Serena Mallick, and Derek Yun
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT AND INSTRUCTIONS
A. Statutory Basis
These Special Interrogatories are propounded by Plaintiff Lumos Analytics Inc. ("Lumos") to Defendant NovaSpark Technologies Inc. ("NovaSpark") pursuant to California Code of Civil Procedure sections 2030.010 through 2030.410. NovaSpark is required to respond to each interrogatory under oath within thirty (30) days of service, in accordance with California Code of Civil Procedure section 2030.260. All responses must be verified by an officer or agent of NovaSpark Technologies Inc. who is authorized to make such verification on its behalf, in compliance with California Code of Civil Procedure section 2030.250.
B. General Instructions
1. Each interrogatory shall be answered separately and fully in writing under oath. Each answer shall restate the interrogatory to which it responds immediately preceding the answer.
2. If NovaSpark cannot answer any interrogatory in full after exercising due diligence to secure the information necessary to provide a complete response, the response shall so state, shall describe in detail the efforts made to obtain the information, and shall provide whatever partial or incomplete information is available. A lack of complete information does not excuse a failure to respond to the extent the information is known or reasonably available.
3. If an objection is made to any interrogatory or any part thereof, NovaSpark shall state the specific grounds for the objection with particularity. If an objection is interposed to only a portion of an interrogatory, NovaSpark shall answer the remaining portions of the interrogatory to which no objection is made. An objection to any portion of an interrogatory shall not be deemed an objection to any other portion of that interrogatory or to any other interrogatory.
4. All responses shall be based upon all information reasonably available to NovaSpark, including information in the possession, custody, or control of NovaSpark and its agents, employees, officers, directors, attorneys, accountants, consultants, advisors, contractors, subsidiaries, affiliates, and other representatives, whether or not such information is in the direct possession of the individual responding on behalf of NovaSpark.
5. Where an interrogatory asks for the identification of a person, provide the following information for each person identified: (a) full legal name; (b) all aliases, former names, or other names by which the person is or has been known; (c) current residential address; (d) current business address; (e) current telephone number(s); (f) current employer and job title; and (g) the person's relationship to NovaSpark Technologies Inc.
6. Where an interrogatory asks for the identification of a document, provide the following information for each document identified: (a) the title or subject line of the document; (b) the date of the document; (c) the author(s) or creator(s); (d) the recipient(s) or addressee(s); (e) the type of document (e.g., email, memorandum, report, spreadsheet, presentation, source-code file, notebook); (f) the number of pages or, for electronically stored information, the approximate file size; (g) the current custodian of the document; and (h) the Bates number or range of Bates numbers, if the document has already been produced in this litigation.
7. If NovaSpark contends that any interrogatory or any portion thereof is ambiguous, NovaSpark shall set forth the nature of the claimed ambiguity and shall respond to the interrogatory under its own reasonable interpretation, identifying that interpretation in the response.
8. The use of the singular form of any word includes the plural, and the use of the plural includes the singular. The use of "and" includes "or," and the use of "or" includes "and." The use of the masculine includes the feminine, and the feminine includes the masculine. The past tense includes the present tense, and the present tense includes the past tense.
C. Duty to Supplement
NovaSpark is under a continuing obligation to supplement, amend, or correct its responses to these interrogatories if and when additional responsive information becomes known or available to NovaSpark, in accordance with California Code of Civil Procedure section 2030.310 and any other applicable provision of law or order of this Court. Such supplemental responses shall be served promptly upon the discovery of additional responsive information and in no event later than the deadline for the exchange of expert reports or as otherwise ordered by the Court.
D. Reference to Protective Order
The Stipulated Protective Order entered in this action by Hon. David Rutherford on March 15, 2023 (Dkt. No. 47) governs the handling, use, and disclosure of any confidential, highly confidential, or attorneys'-eyes-only information that may be disclosed or referenced in responses to these interrogatories. NovaSpark may designate responsive information in accordance with the terms of the Stipulated Protective Order. Any such designation shall not relieve NovaSpark of its obligation to provide complete and responsive answers to each interrogatory.
DEFINITIONS
As used in these Special Interrogatories, the following terms shall have the meanings set forth below:
1. "Lumos" or "Lumos AI" means Plaintiff Lumos Analytics Inc., a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business at 4700 Orchard Parkway, Suite 300, San Jose, California 95134, including its present and former officers, directors, employees, agents, predecessors, successors, subsidiaries, and affiliates.
2. "NovaSpark" or "You" or "Your" means Defendant NovaSpark Technologies Inc., a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business at 88 Bluxome Street, Floor 4, San Francisco, California 94107, Delaware File Number 7294183, including its present and former officers, directors, employees, agents, contractors, consultants, subsidiaries, and affiliates.
3. "Individual Defendants" means Defendants Rajiv Anand, Serena Mallick, and Derek Yun, individually and collectively.
4. "Anand" means Defendant Rajiv Anand, who served as Principal Engineer — ML Infrastructure at Lumos until his resignation on or about September 30, 2022, and who currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of NovaSpark.
5. "Mallick" means Defendant Serena Mallick, who served as Senior Software Engineer — Data Pipelines at Lumos until her resignation on or about October 14, 2022, and who currently serves as Vice President of Engineering at NovaSpark.
6. "Yun" means Defendant Derek Yun, who served as Machine Learning Engineer II at Lumos until his resignation on or about October 21, 2022, and who currently serves as Founding Engineer at NovaSpark.
7. "Lumos Proprietary Information" or "Lumos Trade Secrets" means any and all proprietary, confidential, or trade-secret information of Lumos, including but not limited to: (a) the LumosEdge ensemble machine-learning model architecture, including proprietary neural-network topology, layer configurations, ensemble-weighting schemes, and hyperparameter configurations; (b) proprietary feature-engineering libraries containing 2,847 individual engineered features for financial signal generation, including feature definitions, transformation logic, and signal-scoring methodologies; (c) the DataStream ETL (extract, transform, load) pipeline codebase and data-schema definitions covering ingestion from 43 alternative-data vendors, including vendor-specific API integration code, data-normalization routines, and schema-mapping files; (d) the curated and labeled training dataset of approximately 14.6 terabytes of historical financial and alternative data, including the labeling methodology, data-cleaning processes, and annotation standards applied thereto; and (e) confidential product roadmap documents for 2023–2025, including the unreleased LumosEdge 3.0 specifications (a 37-page PDF document), feature prioritization matrices, and go-to-market timelines.
8. "PIIAA" means the Proprietary Information and Inventions Assignment Agreement executed by each Individual Defendant upon their respective commencement of employment with Lumos. The PIIAA contains, among other things: (a) an assignment-of-inventions clause assigning to Lumos all inventions, developments, and works of authorship created during the course of employment or using Lumos resources; (b) confidentiality and non-disclosure obligations that survive termination of employment for a period of three (3) years; (c) non-solicitation-of-employees restrictions for a period of twelve (12) months following separation from Lumos; and (d) a covenant not to use or disclose Lumos trade secrets at any time during or after employment.
9. "LumosEdge" means Lumos's flagship AI-driven financial analytics product, which uses proprietary ensemble machine-learning models to generate predictive signals for equity and fixed-income portfolio optimization. LumosEdge is Lumos's primary commercial product and is offered to institutional asset managers, hedge funds, and proprietary trading desks.
10. "DataStream" means Lumos's proprietary ETL (extract, transform, load) pipeline system that ingests alternative financial data from 43 vendors into LumosEdge. DataStream encompasses the codebase, schema definitions, vendor integration modules, data-cleaning and normalization routines, and orchestration logic that enable the ingestion, transformation, and loading of alternative data for use in LumosEdge's machine-learning models.
11. "Document" or "Documents" shall have the broadest meaning permitted under California Code of Civil Procedure section 2016.020 and includes, without limitation, all writings of any kind, all recordings (whether audio, video, or both), all electronically stored information ("ESI") of any format, and all tangible things. The term includes, without limitation, emails, text messages, instant messages, Meridian Solutions messages, chat logs, memoranda, letters, reports, presentations, spreadsheets, notebooks (including Jupyter notebooks and similar computational notebooks), source-code files, configuration files, metadata, log files, database records, photographs, videos, and any other form of recorded information.
12. "Communication" or "Communications" means every manner or means of disclosure, transfer, or exchange of information between two or more persons, whether oral, written, or electronic, including but not limited to in-person conversations, telephone calls, video calls, voicemail messages, emails, text messages, instant messages, Meridian Solutions messages, social media messages or posts, letters, and any other form of information exchange.
13. "Person" means any natural person, corporation, partnership, limited liability company, joint venture, association, governmental entity, or other legal entity of any kind.
14. "Concerning" or "Relating to" means referring to, relating to, describing, evidencing, constituting, mentioning, connected with, commenting upon, responsive to, pertaining to, reflecting, or having any logical relationship to the subject matter in question, whether directly or indirectly.
15. "Blackpine" means Blackpine Capital Partners LP, a Delaware limited partnership with offices at 101 Mission Street, 38th Floor, San Francisco, California 94105, including its general partner, limited partners, officers, directors, employees, agents, and representatives, including without limitation Franklin Osei, Managing Partner.
SPECIAL INTERROGATORIES
INTERROGATORY NO. 1:
Identify all persons involved in the formation and incorporation of NovaSpark Technologies Inc., including but not limited to each incorporator, each initial director, and each initial officer. For the formation of NovaSpark, state: (a) the date of incorporation; (b) the state of incorporation; (c) the Delaware File Number; (d) the identity of the registered agent; and (e) the identity of each person who participated in or contributed to the planning, organization, or execution of the incorporation, including any attorney, accountant, or other professional who assisted in the formation process.
For each person identified in response to this Interrogatory, state: (i) their full legal name; (ii) their role in the formation of NovaSpark (e.g., incorporator, initial director, initial officer, attorney, consultant); (iii) their prior employment history for the three (3) years immediately preceding the date of NovaSpark's incorporation, including the name and address of each employer, the position held, and the dates of employment, and specifically identifying any employment with Lumos; (iv) the date on which they assumed their respective position with NovaSpark; and (v) whether they executed a PIIAA or any other agreement with Lumos containing confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-solicitation, non-competition, or inventions-assignment provisions. For avoidance of doubt, Lumos's records indicate that NovaSpark was incorporated in Delaware on October 3, 2022, and this Interrogatory seeks confirmation of that date and all circumstances surrounding the incorporation.
INTERROGATORY NO. 2:
Identify each person who has served as an officer, director, manager, or member of the board of directors of NovaSpark from the date of its incorporation (on or about October 3, 2022) through the present date. For each such person, state:
(a) their full legal name;
(b) their title and position at NovaSpark;
(c) the dates of their service in each such position, including the date of appointment and, if applicable, the date of departure;
(d) their prior employment history for the three (3) years immediately preceding their appointment to such position at NovaSpark, including the name and address of each employer, the position held, and the dates of employment, and specifically identifying any employment with Lumos;
(e) whether they executed a PIIAA or any other agreement with Lumos containing confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-solicitation, non-competition, or inventions-assignment provisions, and if so, the date of execution and a description of the material terms of each such agreement; and
(f) any compensation, equity, options, warrants, or other economic benefits received from NovaSpark in connection with their service.
INTERROGATORY NO. 3:
Identify each person who is currently employed by NovaSpark or who has at any time been employed by NovaSpark from the date of its incorporation (on or about October 3, 2022) through the present date. This Interrogatory expressly encompasses, but is not limited to, Rajiv Anand, Serena Mallick, and Derek Yun. For each such person, state:
(a) their full legal name;
(b) their title and a description of their job responsibilities at NovaSpark;
(c) the date they commenced employment with NovaSpark;
(d) the date their employment with NovaSpark ended, if applicable, and the reason for the departure;
(e) their total compensation from NovaSpark, including base salary, bonuses, equity grants (including the number of shares or options, the vesting schedule, and the strike price or grant-date fair market value), and any signing bonus or other one-time payments;
(f) whether they were previously employed by Lumos and, if so, the dates and position(s) of that prior employment;
(g) whether they executed a PIIAA or any other restrictive covenant, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-solicitation, non-competition, or inventions-assignment agreement with Lumos, and if so, the date of execution and a description of the material terms of each such agreement; and
(h) whether NovaSpark was aware, at the time of hiring, that such person had executed any restrictive covenant or similar agreement with Lumos or any other former employer.
INTERROGATORY NO. 4:
Identify each independent contractor, consultant, advisor, or third-party service provider who has performed work for NovaSpark relating to software development, machine learning, artificial intelligence, data engineering, data science, product design, data analytics, or any other technical function from the date of NovaSpark's incorporation (on or about October 3, 2022) through the present date. For each such person or entity, state:
(a) their full name or, if an entity, the entity's legal name and principal place of business;
(b) a description of the nature of services provided to NovaSpark;
(c) the dates of engagement, including the start date and, if applicable, the end date;
(d) the compensation paid or payable by NovaSpark for such services;
(e) whether such person or entity was previously employed by, affiliated with, or provided services to Lumos, and if so, the nature and dates of such prior relationship;
(f) whether such person or entity had access to any Lumos Proprietary Information, whether through their prior relationship with Lumos or through their work with NovaSpark; and
(g) whether NovaSpark required such person or entity to execute any agreement regarding the handling of third-party proprietary or confidential information, and if so, a description of each such agreement.
INTERROGATORY NO. 5:
Identify each investor, lender, funding source, or other person or entity that has provided capital, financing, credit facilities, or other economic resources to NovaSpark from the date of its incorporation through the present date. This Interrogatory expressly encompasses, but is not limited to, Blackpine Capital Partners LP and any of its affiliated funds or investment vehicles. For each investor, lender, or funding source identified, state:
(a) the full legal name and address of the investor, lender, or funding source;
(b) the type of investment or financing provided (e.g., common equity, preferred equity, convertible note, SAFE, term loan, revolving credit facility, or other);
(c) the aggregate amount of capital provided;
(d) the date(s) on which the investment or financing was executed and funded;
(e) the material terms and conditions of the investment or financing, including any equity percentage, pre-money and post-money valuation, interest rate, conversion terms, liquidation preferences, anti-dilution protections, board-seat rights, or other governance provisions; and
(f) a description of all information about NovaSpark's technology, products, services, intellectual property, business plans, competitive positioning, or team that was provided to such investor or funding source in connection with the investment, including but not limited to pitch decks, investor presentations, business plans, executive summaries, term sheets, due-diligence questionnaires, data-room contents, technical specifications, product demonstrations, prototypes, or other materials.
Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, specifically identify all pitch decks, business plans, technical specifications, product demonstrations, prototypes, data-room materials, or other documents and presentations provided to Blackpine Capital Partners LP (including Franklin Osei, Managing Partner, or any other Blackpine representative) in connection with the approximately $12 million seed round that closed on or about November 15, 2022. For each such document or presentation, state: (i) the title; (ii) the date; (iii) the author(s); (iv) the recipient(s); (v) a description of the content; and (vi) whether any such document or presentation contained, referenced, incorporated, or was derived from, in whole or in part, any Lumos Proprietary Information as defined herein.
INTERROGATORY NO. 6:
Describe in detail each product, service, platform, tool, algorithm, model, or software application that NovaSpark has developed, is currently developing, or plans to develop, including but not limited to any AI-driven alternative-data analytics products, predictive-signal platforms, or portfolio-optimization tools designed for or marketed to hedge funds, proprietary trading desks, institutional asset managers, or other financial institutions. For each such product, service, or offering, provide:
(a) the name or working title;
(b) a detailed description of the product's or service's functionality, features, and intended purpose;
(c) the current stage of development (e.g., concept, design, alpha, beta, released, generally available);
(d) the date on which development commenced;
(e) the identity of all persons who have been involved in its design, development, testing, or deployment, including their roles and the dates of their involvement;
(f) the technology stack employed, including programming languages, frameworks, libraries, cloud infrastructure, and third-party services; and
(g) whether any aspect of such product, service, or offering is similar to, derived from, based upon, competitive with, or functionally equivalent to Lumos's LumosEdge product, DataStream pipeline, or any other Lumos product, feature, or technology.
INTERROGATORY NO. 7:
Identify all source code, codebases, code repositories, software libraries, scripts, computational notebooks (including Jupyter notebooks), configuration files, and other software created, acquired, licensed, or used by NovaSpark in connection with its product development, research, or operations from the date of incorporation through the present date. For each, state:
(a) the name, identifier, or file path;
(b) the programming language(s) in which the code is written;
(c) the author(s) or contributor(s), including the date(s) of their contributions;
(d) the date of initial creation or first use by NovaSpark;
(e) the repository hosting platform or storage location (e.g., Aldermere Data Systems, Aldermere Software, Strathmore Solutions, Sterling Reach Data SystemsdeCommit, local server);
(f) whether any portion of such code was created, adapted, derived from, or inspired by code previously written, developed, or contributed to by Rajiv Anand, Serena Mallick, or Derek Yun during their respective employment at Lumos, including any code written for or incorporated into LumosEdge, DataStream, or any other Lumos product or project; and
(g) whether any portion of such code incorporates, references, is derived from, or is substantially similar to any Lumos Proprietary Information, including the LumosEdge ensemble machine-learning model architecture, the DataStream ETL pipeline codebase and data-schema definitions, or the proprietary feature-engineering libraries containing 2,847 individual engineered features for financial signal generation.
INTERROGATORY NO. 8:
Describe in detail each machine-learning model, algorithm, neural-network architecture, statistical model, or predictive-analytics methodology that NovaSpark has developed, is currently developing, or has used at any time from the date of incorporation through the present date. For each such model, algorithm, architecture, or methodology, state:
(a) the model type, class, and architecture (e.g., gradient-boosted decision tree, recurrent neural network, transformer, ensemble method), including the specific architecture of any neural networks (e.g., number of layers, layer types, activation functions, dropout rates);
(b) the hyperparameter configurations used, including but not limited to learning rate, batch size, number of epochs, regularization parameters, ensemble-weighting schemes, and any other material hyperparameters;
(c) a description of the training data used, including the type, source, volume, and time period of the data;
(d) the identity of each person who contributed to the design, development, training, tuning, or validation of such model, algorithm, or architecture, and the nature and dates of their contributions;
(e) the date on which development of the model, algorithm, or architecture commenced; and
(f) whether any aspect of such model, algorithm, architecture, or methodology is similar to, derived from, based upon, or shares material structural or functional characteristics with the LumosEdge ensemble machine-learning model architecture, including its proprietary neural-network topology, ensemble-weighting schemes, and hyperparameter configurations.
INTERROGATORY NO. 9:
Identify and describe all feature-engineering libraries, individual engineered features, feature sets, feature-selection methodologies, or signal-generation methodologies that NovaSpark has developed, acquired, or used at any time from the date of incorporation through the present date. For each, state:
(a) the total number of individual engineered features in the library or feature set;
(b) the author(s) or developer(s) of each feature or library;
(c) the date of creation or first use;
(d) the data sources relied upon for the generation of each feature or signal;
(e) a description of the feature-engineering methodology or logic, including any transformations, aggregations, normalization techniques, or mathematical operations applied; and
(f) whether any such feature, feature library, feature set, or signal-generation methodology is similar to, derived from, based upon, or overlapping with Lumos's proprietary feature-engineering libraries containing 2,847 individual engineered features for financial signal generation.
INTERROGATORY NO. 10:
Describe in detail all data pipelines, ETL (extract, transform, load) systems, data-ingestion processes, data-integration architectures, and data-schema definitions that NovaSpark has developed, deployed, or used at any time from the date of incorporation through the present date. For each such system, process, or architecture, state:
(a) the system name, identifier, or working title;
(b) the author(s) and developer(s), including the dates of their contributions;
(c) the date on which development commenced;
(d) the identity of all alternative-data vendors, data providers, or other third-party data sources integrated into the system, including the name and type of data provided by each vendor;
(e) the data formats, file types, and schema definitions employed, including any vendor-specific data-normalization routines, schema-mapping files, or data-transformation logic; and
(f) whether any aspect of such system, process, architecture, or schema definition is similar to, derived from, based upon, or substantially reproduces any aspect of Lumos's DataStream ETL pipeline codebase and data-schema definitions covering ingestion from 43 alternative-data vendors.
INTERROGATORY NO. 11:
Identify and describe all training datasets, labeled data, validation datasets, test datasets, historical data, alternative data, and any other data used by NovaSpark to train, validate, test, evaluate, or otherwise develop machine-learning models, algorithms, or predictive-analytics tools at any time from the date of incorporation through the present date. For each dataset identified, state:
(a) the nature and type of data contained in the dataset (e.g., equity pricing data, credit data, satellite imagery, sentiment data, web-traffic data, SEC filings);
(b) the volume of data, expressed in terabytes, gigabytes, or other appropriate unit of measurement;
(c) the source(s) from which the data was obtained, including the name of each vendor, data provider, public source, or other origin;
(d) the date(s) on which the data was acquired, licensed, or compiled;
(e) the cost of acquisition, licensing, or compilation; and
(f) whether any such data is identical to, derived from, a subset of, or materially overlapping with Lumos's curated and labeled training dataset of approximately 14.6 terabytes of historical financial and alternative data, and if so, the extent and nature of such identity, derivation, or overlap.
INTERROGATORY NO. 12:
Identify all product roadmaps, strategic plans, business plans, product specifications, design documents, technical-planning documents, competitive analyses, and market-analysis documents created by or for NovaSpark from the date of its incorporation through the present date. For each such document, state:
(a) the title or subject;
(b) the date of creation or most recent revision;
(c) the author(s) or creator(s);
(d) the recipient(s), audience, or intended audience for the document; and
(e) whether any such document contains, references, incorporates, or was informed by, in whole or in part, Lumos's confidential product roadmap documents for 2023–2025, including the unreleased LumosEdge 3.0 specifications (a 37-page PDF document), and if so, the specific manner in which such Lumos materials were used or referenced.
INTERROGATORY NO. 13:
Identify all computers, laptops, desktop workstations, servers, mobile devices (including smartphones and tablets), external storage media (including USB drives, external hard drives, portable solid-state drives, and any other portable storage devices), and cloud-based storage or computing services (including but not limited to Hollowell Health IT, Aldermere Technologies, Larkspur Technologies, Ridgeway Industries, Crestline Systems, Aldermere Data Systems, Aldermere Software, Strathmore Solutions, and any other cloud-hosted platforms) used by NovaSpark or any of its employees, officers, directors, contractors, or agents in connection with NovaSpark's business from the date of its incorporation through the present date. For each device, system, or service identified, provide:
(a) the type and description of the device, system, or service (e.g., Brightmoor Group Precision 5570 laptop, Tidewater Industries MacBook Pro, Meridian Technologies S3 bucket, Crestline Software account);
(b) the serial number, asset tag, or other unique identifier;
(c) the primary user(s) of the device, system, or service;
(d) the date of acquisition, provisioning, or first use; and
(e) whether any such device, system, or storage medium has at any time contained, stored, processed, or transmitted any Lumos Proprietary Information, and if so, the nature of such information and the dates during which such information was present.
INTERROGATORY NO. 14:
Describe in detail NovaSpark's knowledge of, access to, possession of, and use of any materials, information, source code, data, files, documents, or other items that any of the Individual Defendants — Rajiv Anand, Serena Mallick, or Derek Yun — transferred, copied, downloaded, emailed, uploaded, or otherwise removed from Lumos's systems, networks, devices, or physical premises at any time. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, this Interrogatory specifically encompasses:
(a) the approximately 3.2 gigabytes (GB) of files — including model architecture specifications, hyperparameter configuration files, and related technical documentation — transferred by Rajiv Anand from Lumos systems to a personal Hollowell Health IT account on or about September 26, 2022;
(b) the confidential LumosEdge 3.0 Product Roadmap (a 37-page PDF document) forwarded by Rajiv Anand from his Lumos corporate email account to his personal email address (r.anand.personal@vaultmail.com) on or about September 28, 2022;
(c) the approximately 780 megabytes (MB) of DataStream ETL pipeline repository data, including source-code files, configuration files, and schema definitions, copied by Serena Mallick to a personal external USB drive (serial number WD-4837291) on or about October 10, 2022; and
(d) the 47 proprietary Jupyter notebooks containing feature-engineering code, model-training scripts, and experimental results downloaded by Derek Yun to a personal Larkspur Technologies account on or about October 18, 2022.
For each item described in subparts (a) through (d) above, and for any other Lumos materials in the possession or control of the Individual Defendants that NovaSpark is aware of, state:
(i) whether NovaSpark was aware at any time that the Individual Defendants possessed such materials;
(ii) the date on which NovaSpark first became aware that the Individual Defendants possessed such materials, and the circumstances under which NovaSpark became aware;
(iii) whether any such materials were introduced into, incorporated in, used in, referenced in, or relied upon in NovaSpark's product development, research, operations, investor presentations, or any other aspect of NovaSpark's business;
(iv) the identity of all persons at NovaSpark who accessed, viewed, reviewed, used, copied, or otherwise interacted with such materials, including the dates and circumstances of each such interaction; and
(v) the current location and status of all such materials, including whether they have been sequestered, returned, deleted, or otherwise disposed of.
INTERROGATORY NO. 15:
Describe in detail all steps, measures, policies, procedures, protocols, and safeguards that NovaSpark has adopted, implemented, or taken at any time from the date of its incorporation through the present date to ensure that no Lumos Proprietary Information or trade secrets were or are used in NovaSpark's business, product development, research, operations, or any other activities. In responding to this Interrogatory, specifically address:
(a) the date on which each such measure, policy, or protocol was first implemented;
(b) the identity of the person(s) responsible for designing, implementing, and monitoring each measure, policy, or protocol;
(c) whether NovaSpark conducted any audit, review, screening, or assessment of the Individual Defendants' personal files, devices, cloud accounts, or work product prior to or upon their joining NovaSpark, and if so, the scope, methodology, and results of each such audit or review;
(d) whether NovaSpark engaged any outside consultant, attorney, forensic examiner, or other third party to conduct any such audit, review, or assessment, and if so, the identity of such consultant or firm, the date and scope of engagement, and the findings or conclusions reached;
(e) whether NovaSpark maintains any written policies, handbooks, codes of conduct, or guidelines regarding the use, possession, or handling of third-party proprietary or confidential information by NovaSpark employees, officers, or contractors, and if so, the date of adoption, the author(s), and a description of the substance of each such policy; and
(f) whether any of the measures, policies, or protocols described above were implemented before or after NovaSpark's receipt of the cease-and-desist letter from Calderwood & Harkness LLP dated January 9, 2023, or the filing of this action.
INTERROGATORY NO. 16:
Identify all communications — whether oral, written, or electronic — among or between any NovaSpark officers, employees, directors, contractors, investors, advisors, board members, or agents concerning any of the following subjects: (i) Lumos; (ii) Lumos Proprietary Information or Lumos trade secrets; (iii) LumosEdge; (iv) DataStream; (v) any of the Individual Defendants' prior employment at Lumos; (vi) the materials or information that the Individual Defendants obtained, possessed, or removed from Lumos; or (vii) the claims, allegations, or litigation in this action. For each such communication, state:
(a) the date of the communication;
(b) the identity of all participants, including the sender, recipient(s), and any other persons present or copied;
(c) the medium or form of the communication (e.g., email, Meridian Solutions message, text message, in-person meeting, telephone call, video conference, memorandum);
(d) a description of the substance of the communication sufficient to identify its subject matter and content; and
(e) whether a document, recording, transcript, or other memorialization of the communication exists, and if so, its current location, custodian, and Bates number (if already produced).
INTERROGATORY NO. 17:
Identify all communications between NovaSpark (including any of its officers, directors, employees, contractors, advisors, or agents) and Blackpine Capital Partners LP (including Franklin Osei, Managing Partner, or any other partner, associate, analyst, or representative of Blackpine) concerning any of the following subjects: (i) Lumos; (ii) Lumos Proprietary Information or Lumos trade secrets; (iii) Lumos's technology, products, or intellectual property; (iv) the Individual Defendants' prior employment at Lumos; (v) the Individual Defendants' possession of Lumos materials; or (vi) the claims, allegations, or litigation in this action. For each such communication, state:
(a) the date of the communication;
(b) the identity of all participants, including the sender, recipient(s), and any other persons present or copied;
(c) the medium or form of the communication (e.g., email, Meridian Solutions message, telephone call, in-person meeting, video conference); and
(d) a description of the substance of the communication sufficient to identify its subject matter and content.
INTERROGATORY NO. 18:
Describe in detail all discussions, communications, meetings, planning activities, or other interactions among Rajiv Anand, Serena Mallick, and Derek Yun — or any subset of the three — relating to the founding, incorporation, launch, business strategy, product concept, technology development, or financing of NovaSpark that occurred at any time prior to each respective Individual Defendant's resignation from Lumos (Anand resigned on or about September 30, 2022; Mallick resigned on or about October 14, 2022; and Yun resigned on or about October 21, 2022). For each discussion, communication, meeting, or planning activity, state:
(a) the date;
(b) the identity of all participants;
(c) the medium or form of the interaction (e.g., in-person meeting, telephone call, text message, email, video call, Meridian Solutions message);
(d) the location (for in-person meetings); and
(e) a description of the substance of the discussion, communication, or meeting, including specifically whether any Lumos Proprietary Information, Lumos technology, Lumos products, or the Individual Defendants' work at Lumos was discussed, referenced, or relied upon in any way.
INTERROGATORY NO. 19:
Describe in detail NovaSpark's target market, target customer base, and the competitive positioning of NovaSpark's products and services relative to Lumos's LumosEdge product and any other Lumos products or services. In responding to this Interrogatory, specifically address:
(a) whether NovaSpark targets institutional asset managers, hedge funds, proprietary trading desks, quantitative investment firms, family offices, or other financial institutions that are current or prospective customers of Lumos, and if so, identify each such customer or prospect;
(b) the extent of overlap between NovaSpark's target market and Lumos's target market, including the number and identity of shared or overlapping target customers;
(c) whether NovaSpark has at any time solicited, contacted, pitched, demonstrated its products to, or entered into any discussions or negotiations with any current or former customer, prospect, partner, or vendor of Lumos, and if so, the identity of each such entity, the date of contact, the nature of the solicitation or communication, and the outcome; and
(d) any internal NovaSpark analyses, memoranda, presentations, or other documents that discuss, evaluate, or reference Lumos's market position, customer relationships, product capabilities, or competitive strengths or weaknesses.
INTERROGATORY NO. 20:
Identify all revenue, contracts, agreements, letters of intent, term sheets, memoranda of understanding, pilot programs, proof-of-concept engagements, or other business arrangements or prospective business arrangements that NovaSpark has entered into, is currently negotiating, or has at any time discussed with any customer, client, prospective customer, or business partner from the date of NovaSpark's incorporation through the present date. For each such arrangement, state:
(a) the identity and address of the counterparty;
(b) the date of execution or, if not yet executed, the current status of negotiations;
(c) the nature of the arrangement (e.g., subscription agreement, software license, SaaS agreement, pilot program, data-sharing arrangement, consulting engagement);
(d) the total value or projected value of the arrangement, including any recurring revenue, one-time fees, or equity components; and