On March 2, the Eastern District of Texas introduced on its website a Model Order Regarding E-Discovery in Patent Cases along with amendments to its local rules.
The purpose of the order is to streamline electronically stored information ("ESI") production in order to promote "'just, speedy, and inexpensive determination'" of actions.
A working group of the Local Rules Advisory Committee examined Federal Circuit Chief Judge Rader's Model Order Regarding E-Discovery in Patent Cases ("Model Order") to determine whether such an order would be useful to those practicing in the Eastern District of Texas.
Chief Judge Rader had presented the Model Order to the Texas Eastern Bench Bar Conference in September 2011. Although based on Chief Judge Rader's Model Order, the model order proposed by the working group has a number of distinctions, all of which can be found in Appendix P to the local rules.
Most notably, the district court's version of the model order:
Time will tell as to whether the district court's version of the model order will be effective in reducing discovery costs in patent cases.