Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_13-cv-01161/USCOURTS-cand-4_13-cv-01161-8/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 28:1331 Fed. Question

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STIPULATED ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF 

ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

CASE NO. 3:13-CV-01161 HSG

Eric L. Wesenberg, Bar No. 139696

EWesenberg@perkinscoie.com

Christopher L Kelley, Bar No. 166608

CKelley@perkinscoie.com

Kenneth J. Halpern, Bar No. 187663

KHalpern@perkinscoie.com

Wing H. Liang, Bar No. 285521

WLiang@perkinscoie.com

PERKINS COIE LLP

3150 Porter Drive

Palo Alto, CA 94304-1212

Telephone: 650.838.4300

Facsimile: 650.838.43501

Attorneys for Plaintiff 

THX LTD.

Mark D. Selwyn, Bar No. 244180

mark.selwyn@wilmerhale.com

WILMER CUTLER PICKERING

 HALE AND DORR LLP

950 Page Mill Road

Palo Alto, CA 94304

Telephone: (650) 858-6000

Facsimile: (650) 858-6100

Nina S. Tallon (pro hac vice)

Nina.Tallon@wilmerhale.com

WILMER CUTLER PICKERING

 HALE AND DORR LLP

1875 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20006

Telephone: (202) 663-6000

Facsimile: (202) 663-6363

Attorneys for Defendant 

APPLE INC.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION

THX LTD.,

Plaintiff,

v.

APPLE INC.,

Defendant.

Case No. 3:13-CV-01161-HSG

STIPULATED ORDER RE: DISCOVERY 

OF ELECTRONICALLY STORED 

INFORMATION

Case 4:13-cv-01161-HSG Document 55 Filed 12/04/15 Page 1 of 9
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-1- STIPULATED ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF 

ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

CASE NO. 3:13-CV-01161 HSG

Plaintiff THX Ltd. (“THX”) and Defendant Apple Inc. (“Apple”) (collectively “the 

Parties”) hereby stipulate as follows:

1. PURPOSE

This Order will govern discovery of electronically stored information (“ESI”) in this case 

as a supplement to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, this Court’s Guidelines for the 

Discovery of Electronically Stored Information, and any other applicable orders and rules.

2. COOPERATION

The parties are aware of the importance the Court places on cooperation and commit to 

cooperate in good faith throughout the matter consistent with this Court’s Guidelines for the 

Discovery of ESI.

3. LIAISON

The parties have identified liaisons to each other who are and will be knowledgeable 

about and responsible for discussing their respective ESI. Each e-discovery liaison will be, or 

have access to those who are, knowledgeable about the technical aspects of e-discovery, including 

the location, nature, accessibility, format, collection, search methodologies, and production of ESI 

in this matter. The parties will rely on the liaisons, as needed, to confer about ESI and to help 

resolve disputes without court intervention.

4. PRESERVATION

The parties have discussed their preservation obligations and needs and agree that 

preservation of potentially relevant ESI will be reasonable and proportionate. To reduce the costs 

and burdens of preservation and to ensure proper ESI is preserved, the parties agree that: 

a) Only ESI created or received between March 14, 2007 and the present will be 

preserved;

b) The parties shall meet and confer to reach agreement on a reasonable list of 

custodians for purposes of collection, review, and production of electronically stored information. 

In connection with the meet and confer process, within 10 days of entry of this order, each party 

shall provide a proposed list of individual custodians who are knowledgeable about and were 

involved with the following subjects in this case: 

Case 4:13-cv-01161-HSG Document 55 Filed 12/04/15 Page 2 of 9
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-2- STIPULATED ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF 

ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

CASE NO. 3:13-CV-01161 HSG

• the asserted patents and U.S. Patent No. 9,107,003 (including conception, 

reduction to practice, diligence in reduction to practice, and prosecution); 

• development, design, operation, use, marketing and sales of any non-Apple 

product alleged by THX to practice any claim of the asserted patents; 

• the first public disclosure of the claimed inventions;

• the first disclosure by a named THX inventor of the claimed invention to any other 

person; 

• the development, design, and operation of the loudspeakers in the accused 

products; 

• sales and marketing of the accused products; and 

• other damages-related information.

c) The parties agree that the following sources of data are not reasonably accessible, 

and the parties agree that they do not need to preserve them: backup media, digital voicemail, 

instant messages that are not ordinarily printed or maintained in a server dedicated to instant 

messaging, text messages, and automatically saved versions of documents. The parties agree that 

data from these sources could contain relevant information, but under the proportionality factors 

they should not be preserved. 

d) Absent a showing of good cause by the requesting party, the parties shall not be 

required to modify, on a going-forward basis, the procedures used by them in the ordinary course 

of business to back up and archive data; provided, however, that the parties shall preserve the 

non-duplicative discoverable information currently in their possession, custody or control.

5. SEARCH

The parties agree that in responding to an initial Fed. R. Civ. P. 34 request, or earlier if 

appropriate, they will meet and confer about methods to search ESI in order to identify ESI that is 

subject to production in discovery and filter out ESI that is not subject to discovery.

6. PRODUCTION FORMATS

All documents that are hardcopy or paper files shall be scanned and produced in the same 

manner as documents existing in electronic format. The parties agree to produce documents as 

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-3- STIPULATED ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF 

ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

CASE NO. 3:13-CV-01161 HSG

multiple page, searchable PDF format at a resolution of at least 300 dpi or in single page TIFF 

format. Each production shall include Concordance/Opticon image load files that indicate the 

beginning and ending of each document. For documents that already exist in PDF format prior to 

production (i.e., which the producing party receives from a client or third party in PDF format), 

the producing party may provide them in that same PDF format, whether searchable or nonsearchable. For documents converted to PDF format prior to production, the producing party 

shall make reasonable efforts to convert to searchable PDF. The parties will meet and confer to 

discuss requests for the production of files in native format, on a case-by-case basis. If the parties 

are unable to reach agreement with regard to requests for additional documents in native-file 

format, the parties reserve the right to seek relief from the Court. Documents produced natively 

shall be represented in the set of imaged documents by a slipsheet indicating the production 

identification number and confidentiality designation for the native file that is being produced. If 

particular documents warrant a different format, the parties will cooperate to arrange for the 

mutually acceptable production of such documents. The parties agree not to degrade the 

searchability of documents as part of the document production process. The parties agree to 

respond to reasonable and specific requests for the production of higher resolution or color 

images. Nothing in this Stipulation shall preclude a producing party from objecting to such 

requests as unreasonable in number, timing or scope, provided that a producing party shall not 

object if the document as originally produced is illegible or difficult to read. The producing party 

shall have the option of responding by producing a native-file version of the document. If a 

dispute arises with regard to requests for higher resolution or color images, the parties will meet 

and confer in good faith to try to resolve it.

All documents shall be produced in their original language. Where a requested document 

exists in a foreign language and the producing party also has an English-language version of that 

document that it prepared for non-litigation purposes prior to filing of the lawsuit, the producing 

party shall produce both the original document and all English-language versions. In addition, if 

the producing party has a certified translation of a foreign-language document that is being 

produced, (whether or not the translation is prepared for purposes of litigation) the producing 

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-4- STIPULATED ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF 

ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

CASE NO. 3:13-CV-01161 HSG

party shall produce both the original document and the certified translation. Nothing in this 

agreement shall require a producing party to prepare a translation, certified or otherwise, for 

foreign language documents that are produced in discovery.

7. DATABASES

Certain types of databases are dynamic in nature and, as such, information in those 

databases may change over time. If a party wishes to produce information from any such 

databases, that party shall identify the specific databases, by name and a description of those 

databases, that contain the relevant and responsive information to the other party prior to 

producing documents from any such databases. The party may opt to produce relevant and 

responsive information from databases in a static format, such as a report or data table. If the 

opposing party feels that the format used is inappropriate and/or that a supplemental static format 

production should be made, the parties shall meet and confer to attempt to agree on an appropriate 

format and/or the scope of supplemental static format production. 

8. PRODUCTION MEDIA AND ENCRYPTION OF PRODUCTIONS

Unless otherwise agreed, the parties shall provide document productions in the following 

manner: The producing party shall provide the production data on CDs, DVDs, FTP, email, or 

external hard drives, as appropriate. 

9. METADATA FIELDS

In collecting ESI for production, the parties shall preserve for production, and shall not 

remove or degrade, the metadata fields identified in this Section, to the extent such fields are 

contained in or associated with ESI unless modification is necessary to deal with path and name 

character length restrictions. However, the parties are not obligated to include metadata for any 

document that does not contain such metadata in the original, if it is not possible to automate the 

creation of metadata when the document is collected. The parties reserve their rights to object to 

any request for the creation of metadata for documents that do not contain metadata in the 

original.

For general ESI, parties shall preserve: Custodian, Author (to the extent it exists), Title (to 

the extent it exists), File Extension and Pages. Email productions shall preserve (to the extent it 

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-5- STIPULATED ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF 

ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

CASE NO. 3:13-CV-01161 HSG

exists): Custodian, Pages, From/Author, To, CC, BCC, Email Subject, Date Sent, Date Received, 

Time Sent, Time Received, and the BegAttach (the document ID number associated with the first 

page of the parent email) and EndAttach (the document ID associated with the last page of the 

last attachment to a parent email). All produced ESI shall indicate the Control Number Begin and 

End (also known as “Bates numbers”).

10. E-MAIL

Email production requests shall be phased to occur after the parties have exchanged initial 

disclosures and basic documentation about the patents, the prior art, the accused instrumentalities, 

and the relevant finances.

a) General ESI production requests under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 34 and 45 

shall not include email or other forms of electronic correspondence (collectively “email”). To 

obtain email, parties must propound specific email product requests. Non-email ESI, including, 

but not limited to, electronic files, shall be collected for each individual custodian from the 

personal computers, network resources, and other electronic devices that those individuals use for 

work purposes except for mobile phones. 

b) E-mail production requests shall identify specific custodians and time frame(s) to 

be searched. 

c) Each requesting party shall limit its email production requests to a total of five 

custodians per producing party for all such requests. The parties may jointly agree to modify this 

limit without the Court’s leave. The Court shall consider contested requests for additional 

custodians, upon a showing of good cause.

d) Each requesting party shall limit its email production requests to a total of ten 

search terms per custodian per party. The parties may jointly agree to modify this limit without 

the Court’s leave. The Court shall consider contested requests for additional search terms per 

custodian, upon a showing of good cause.

e) Search terms shall be narrowly tailored to particular issues. Indiscriminate terms, 

such as the producing company’s name or its product name, are inappropriate unless combined 

with narrowing search criteria that sufficiently reduce the risk of overproduction. A conjunctive 

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-6- STIPULATED ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF 

ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

CASE NO. 3:13-CV-01161 HSG

combination of multiple words or phrases (e.g., “computer” and “system,” “computer” w/x 

“system,” “computer” but not “system”) narrows the search and shall count as a single search 

term. A disjunctive combination of multiple words or phrases (e.g., “computer” or “system”) 

broadens the search and thus each word or phrase shall count as a separate search term unless 

they are variations of the same word. Use of narrowing search criteria (e.g., “and,” “but not,” 

“w/x”) is encouraged to limit the production and shall be considered when determining whether 

to shift costs for disproportionate discovery. Should a party request search terms beyond the 

limits agreed to by the parties or granted by the Court pursuant to this paragraph, the producing 

party may decline to respond or request that the producing party bear all costs caused by such 

additional discovery.

f) If a producing party determines, either upon receipt or thereafter, that one or more 

proposed search terms results or will likely result in an unduly burdensome quantity of excessive 

or irrelevant information (“false hits”), the producing party shall promptly contact the requesting 

party to request a reassessment of the proposed search term(s), and the parties shall meet and 

confer in good faith to discuss ways to limit the number of false hits, such as application of 

further negative search restrictions (e.g., if a single search was for “card” and ninety percent of 

the resulting documents came from the irrelevant term “credit card,” a negative limitation to 

ignore documents only returned as a result of “credit card” may be applied to remove these 

documents). The party receiving production shall not unreasonably oppose such further 

restrictions designed to filter immaterial search results.

g) Nothing in this Order prevents the parties from agreeing to use technology assisted 

review and other techniques insofar as their use improves the efficacy of discovery. Such topics 

should be discussed pursuant to the District’s E-Discovery Guidelines.

h) The parties shall produce email attachments sequentially after the parent email.

11. DOCUMENTS PROTECTED FROM DISCOVERY

a) Pursuant to Fed. R. Evid. 502(d), the production of a privileged or work-productprotected document, whether inadvertent or otherwise, is not a waiver of privilege or protection 

from discovery in this case or in any other federal or state proceeding. For example, the mere 

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-7- STIPULATED ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF 

ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

CASE NO. 3:13-CV-01161 HSG

production of privileged or work-product-protected documents in this case as part of a mass 

production is not itself a waiver in this case or in any other federal or state proceeding.

b) In the event of inadvertent disclosure, the receiving party shall not use the content 

of ESI that the producing party asserts is protected by any applicable privilege or doctrine, or the 

fact of inadvertent production, to challenge the protection asserted. Further, the receiving party 

shall immediately return or confirm in writing that it has destroyed all information that contains 

privileged matter or work product that appears on its face to have been inadvertently produced or, 

if notice is provided, within fifteen (15) calendar days of the date of the notice. 

c) Attorney-client communications or attorney work product that post-date the filing 

of the complaint need not be placed on a privilege log. Communications may be identified on a 

privilege log by category, rather than individually, if appropriate. 

12. SOURCE CODE

This Stipulation does not govern the format for production of source code. The Parties 

understand and agree that source code will not be relevant to this litigation. However, if the 

Parties’ understanding and agreement later changes, they shall negotiate a separate “Source Code 

Protective Order” to be entered into at a later date. 

13. MODIFICATION

This Stipulated Order may be modified by a Stipulated Order of the parties or by the 

Court for good cause shown.

IT IS SO STIPULATED, through Counsel of Record.

DATED: December 3, 2015 By: /s/ Eric L. Wesenberg

Eric L. Wesenberg, Bar No. 139696

EWesenberg@perkinscoie.com

Christopher L Kelley, Bar No. 166608

CKelley@perkinscoie.com

Kenneth J. Halpern, Bar No. 187663

KHalpern@perkinscoie.com

Wing H. Liang, Bar No. 285521

WLiang@perkinscoie.com

PERKINS COIE LLP

3150 Porter Drive

Palo Alto, CA 94304-1212

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-8- STIPULATED ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF 

ELECTRONICALLY STORED INFORMATION

CASE NO. 3:13-CV-01161 HSG

Telephone: 650.838.4300

Facsimile: 650.838.43501

Attorneys for Plaintiff

THX LTD.

DATED: December 3, 2015 By: /s/ Nina S. Tallon

Mark D. Selwyn, Bar No. 244180

Mark.Selwyn@wilmerhale.com

WILMER CUTLER PICKERING

 HALE AND DORR LLP

950 Page Mill Road

Palo Alto, CA 94304

Telephone: (650) 858-6000

Facsimile: (650) 858-6100

Nina S. Tallon (pro hac vice)

Nina.Tallon@wilmerhale.com

WILMER CUTLER PICKERING

 HALE AND DORR LLP

1875 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20006

Telephone: (202) 663-6000

Facsimile: (202) 663-6363

Attorneys for Defendant

APPLE INC.

IT IS ORDERED that the forgoing Agreement is approved. 

Dated:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT /

MAGISTRATE JUDGE

12/4/2015

Case 4:13-cv-01161-HSG Document 55 Filed 12/04/15 Page 9 of 9