Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-01069/USCOURTS-cand-3_17-cv-01069-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 35:271 Patent Infringement

---

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF ELECTRONICALLY 

STORED INFORMATION FOR PATENT LITIGATION 

CASE NO. 3:17-CV-01069-RS 

[COMPLETE LIST OF COUNSEL 

IDENTIFIED ON SIGNATURE PAGES] 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

HUNTER DOUGLAS, INC. and 

ANDREW J. TOTI TESTAMENTARY 

TRUST, 

Plaintiffs,

v.

CHING FENG HOME FASHIONS CO., 

LTD., 

Defendant.

CASE NO. 3:17-CV-01069-RS 

STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] 

ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF 

ELECTRONICALLY STORED 

INFORMATION FOR PATENT 

LITIGATION 

Case 3:17-cv-01069-RS Document 69 Filed 06/13/17 Page 1 of 9
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF ELECTRONICALLY 

STORED INFORMATION FOR PATENT LITIGATION 

CASE NO. 3:17-CV-01069-RS 1

WHEREAS, Hunter Douglas, Inc. and the Andrew J. Toti Testamentary Trust 

(collectively, “Plaintiffs”), and Ching Feng Home Fashions Co., Ltd. (“Ching Feng”), have 

stipulated to certain modifications to the Court’s Model Stipulation & Order Re: Discovery of 

Electronically Stored Information For Patent Litigation, and for good cause shown and upon the 

stipulation of the parties, the Court ORDERS as follows: 

1. This Order supplements all other discovery rules and orders. It streamlines 

Electronically Stored Information (“ESI”) production to promote a “just, speedy, and inexpensive 

determination of this action, as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 1.” 

2. This Order may be modified in the Court’s discretion or by stipulation.

3. As in all cases, costs may be shifted for disproportionate ESI production requests 

pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26. Likewise, a party’s nonresponsive or dilatory 

discovery tactics are cost-shifting considerations. 

4. A party’s meaningful compliance with this Order and efforts to promote efficiency 

and reduce costs will be considered in cost-shifting determinations. 

5. The parties are expected to comply with the District’s E-Discovery Guidelines 

(“Guidelines”) and are encouraged to employ the District’s Model Stipulated Order Re: the 

Discovery of Electronically Stored Information and Checklist for Rule 26(f) Meet and Confer 

regarding Electronically Stored Information. 

6. 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 production requests. 

7. Email production requests shall only be propounded for specific issues, rather than 

general discovery of a product or business. 

8. 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. While this provision does not require the production 

of such information, the Court encourages prompt and early production of this information to 

promote efficient and economical streamlining of the case. 

Case 3:17-cv-01069-RS Document 69 Filed 06/13/17 Page 2 of 9
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF ELECTRONICALLY 

STORED INFORMATION FOR PATENT LITIGATION 

CASE NO. 3:17-CV-01069-RS 2

9. Email production requests shall identify the custodian, search terms, and time 

frame. The parties shall cooperate to identify the proper custodians, proper search terms and 

proper timeframe as set forth in the Guidelines. 

10. 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 showing a distinct need based on the size, complexity, and issues of this specific 

case. Cost-shifting may be considered as part of any such request. 

11. Each requesting party shall limit its email production requests to a total of five 

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 showing a distinct need based on the size, complexity, and issues of this specific 

case. The Court encourages the parties to confer on a process to test the efficacy of the search 

terms. The 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 

combination of multiple words or phrases (e.g., “computer” and “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 variants 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 serve email 

production requests with search terms beyond the limits agreed to by the parties or granted by the 

Court pursuant to this paragraph, this shall be considered in determining whether any party shall 

bear all reasonable costs caused by such additional discovery. 

12. 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. 

Case 3:17-cv-01069-RS Document 69 Filed 06/13/17 Page 3 of 9
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF ELECTRONICALLY 

STORED INFORMATION FOR PATENT LITIGATION 

CASE NO. 3:17-CV-01069-RS 3

13. Absent further Court order, the following parameters shall apply to general ESI 

production requests under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 34 and 45: 

13.1. Absent a showing of good cause, general ESI production requests or 

compliance with a mandatory disclosure requirement of this Court shall not include or require the 

production of metadata with the exception of the following information which shall be included: 

BEGBATES, ENDBATES, BEGATTACH, ENDATTACH, ATT_COUNT, CUSTODIAN_ALL, 

AUTHOR, SUBJECT, TITLE, SUBJ_EMAIL, FILE_NAME, CONFIDENTIALITY, 

COMMENTS,1

 TEXT LINK, NATIVELINK, REDACTED, TO, FROM, CC, BCC, DATE SENT, 

TIME SENT, DATE RECEIVED, TIME RECEIVED, CREATE_DATE, LASTMODDATE, 

LASTPRNTDATE, DOC_TYPE, DOCEXT, PAGE_COUNT, DUPSTATUS, MD5HASH, TEXT, 

VOLUME, NATIVE LINK, and FOREIGN_LANG which should be populated by the party or the 

party’s vendor. Fields showing the date and time that the document was sent and received, as well 

as the complete distribution list, shall generally be included in the production if such fields exist. 

The parties will make reasonable efforts to ensure that metadata fields automatically extracted from 

the documents are correct, however, the parties acknowledge that such metadata may not always be 

accurate and might instead contain irrelevant or incorrect information generated during the 

collection process. Parties may request other native files be produced as described in Section IV 

below. To the extent that the term “native” is used in this agreement, it means either in native or 

otherwise comparable format. Thus, for example, if a Google slide presentation is to be produced in 

native format, producing the document as a .ppt file would be appropriate. 

13.2. Accessible ESI. The parties agree that reasonably accessible sources of ESI 

for the purposes of this case include electronic documents stored on computer networks, hard 

drives, shared network drives, and workstation or laptop hard drives.

13.3. General Document Image Format. Each electronic document shall be 

produced in black and white or color single-page Group IV Tagged Image File Format (“TIFF”) or 

native format. TIFF files shall be single page and shall be named with a unique production number 

1

 The parties agree that an acceptable alternative to producing COMMENTS metadata as a separate 

field is to make comments visible in TIFF format. 

Case 3:17-cv-01069-RS Document 69 Filed 06/13/17 Page 4 of 9
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF ELECTRONICALLY 

STORED INFORMATION FOR PATENT LITIGATION 

CASE NO. 3:17-CV-01069-RS 4

followed by the appropriate file extension. Load files stating the location and unitization of the 

TIFF files shall be provided. If a document is more than one page, the unitization of the document 

and any attachments and/or affixed notes shall be maintained as they existed in the original 

document. 

13.4. Hard Copy Documents. Documents that exist in hard copy format only 

shall be scanned and produced as black and white or color single page Group IV TIFFs, with at least 

300 dpi. Each TIFF image shall be named according to the corresponding Bates number associated 

with the document. Each image shall be branded according to the production number and 

applicable confidentiality designation. TIFFs shall show all text and images that would be visible to 

a user of the hard copy documents. The documents should be unitized as they currently exist in the 

ordinary course of business. 

13.5. De-Duplication. A party is only required to produce a single copy of a 

responsive document and a party may de-duplicate responsive ESI (based on MD5 or SHA-1 hash 

values at the document family level) across volumes. To the extent that a base document may 

contain nonprivileged handwriting, notes or other modifications or marginalia which render the 

document non-identical, a copy of each non-identical document shall be produced. To the extent 

that de-duplication through MD5 or SHA-1 hash values is not possible, the parties shall meet and 

confer to discuss any other proposed methods of de-duplication. 

13.6. Text-Searchable Documents. Documents shall be produced in textsearchable format at no cost to the receiving party. However, documents that do not have 

extractable text or text that can be generated by optical character recognition (OCR) need not be 

produced in text-searchable format. 

13.7. Footer. Each document image shall contain a footer with a sequentially 

ascending production number. 

13.8. Native Files. Excel spreadsheets shall be produced in their native format 

when requested. However, native format production shall not be required if an Excel spreadsheet 

requires redaction (for privilege or otherwise). Moreover, document types that cannot be reduced to 

TIFF image (e.g., media files, etc.) shall be produced in their native format with an accompanying 

Case 3:17-cv-01069-RS Document 69 Filed 06/13/17 Page 5 of 9
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF ELECTRONICALLY 

STORED INFORMATION FOR PATENT LITIGATION 

CASE NO. 3:17-CV-01069-RS 5

slip-sheet branded with the appropriate production number and confidentiality designation. For 

other documents, a party may make a reasonable request to receive the document in its native 

format, and upon receiving such a request, the producing party shall produce the document in its 

native format with an accompanying slip-sheet branded with the appropriate production number and 

confidentiality designation. 

13.9. Color. A party that receives a document produced in a format specified 

above may make a reasonable request to receive a color version. Upon receipt of such a request, the 

producing party shall produce color images in single-page JPEG format. 

13.10. No Backup Restoration Required. Absent a showing of good cause, no 

party need restore any form of media upon which backup data is maintained in a party’s normal or 

allowed processes, including but not limited to backup tapes, disks, SAN, and other forms of media. 

13.11. Inaccessible ESI. Absent a showing of good cause, voicemails; instant 

messages; legacy data; residual, fragment, damaged, permanently deleted slack and unallocated 

data; PDAs; and mobile phones are all deemed not reasonably accessible and need not be collected 

and preserved. 

14. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 502(d), the inadvertent production of privileged or 

work product protected ESI is not a waiver in this case or in any other federal or state proceeding. 

15. The mere production of ESI in litigation as part of a mass production shall not itself 

constitute a waiver for any purpose. 

16. Except as expressly stated, nothing in this order affects the parties’ discovery 

obligations under the Federal or Local Rules. 

Case 3:17-cv-01069-RS Document 69 Filed 06/13/17 Page 6 of 9
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF ELECTRONICALLY 

STORED INFORMATION FOR PATENT LITIGATION 

CASE NO. 3:17-CV-01069-RS 6

IT IS SO STIPULATED, through Counsel of Record. 

DATED: June 8, 2017 Respectfully submitted,

KILPATRICK TOWNSEND & STOCKTON LLP 

 By: /s/ Frederick L. Whitmer

 KILPATRICK TOWNSEND & STOCKTON LLP 

Frederick L. Whitmer, pro hac vice

1114 Avenue of the Americas 

New York, NY 10036 

Email: fwhitmer@kilpatricktownsend.com 

Telephone: (212) 775-8773 

Facsimile: (212) 775-8821 

Matthew C. Holohan, (SBN 239040) 

Kent T. Dallow, pro hac vice 

1400 Wewatta Street 

Denver, CO 80202 

Email: mholohan@kilpatricktownsend.com 

 kdallow@kilpatricktownsend.com 

Telephone: (303) 571-4000 

Facsimile: (303) 571-4321 

A. James Isbester (SBN 129820) 

Two Embarcadero Center, Suite 1900 

San Francisco, CA 94111 

Email: jisbester@kilpatricktownsend.com 

Telephone: (415) 273-4335 

Facsimile: (415) 576-0300 

 Attorneys for Plaintiffs Hunter Douglas Inc. and Andrew J. Toti 

Testamentary Trust 

Case 3:17-cv-01069-RS Document 69 Filed 06/13/17 Page 7 of 9
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF ELECTRONICALLY 

STORED INFORMATION FOR PATENT LITIGATION 

CASE NO. 3:17-CV-01069-RS 7

Dated: June 8, 2017 K&L GATES LLP

By: /s/ Peter E. Soskin (with permission) 

Harold H. Davis, Jr. 

Jas S. Dhillon 

Rachel E. Burnim 

Peter E. Soskin 

K&L GATES LLP 

4 Embarcadero Center, Suite 1200 

San Francisco, California 94111 

Tel: 415.882.8200 

Fax: 412.882.8220 

Jay C. Chiu (SBN 205385) 

jay.chiu@klgates.com 

K&L GATES LLP 

1 Park Plaza 

Twelfth Floor 

Irvine, CA 92614 

Tel: 949.253.0900 

Fax: 949.253.0902 

Attorneys for Defendant Ching Feng Home Fashions Co., 

Ltd.

Case 3:17-cv-01069-RS Document 69 Filed 06/13/17 Page 8 of 9
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

STIPULATION AND [PROPOSED] ORDER RE: DISCOVERY OF ELECTRONICALLY 

STORED INFORMATION FOR PATENT LITIGATION 

CASE NO. 3:17-CV-01069-RS 8

PURSUANT TO STIPULATION, IT IS ORDERED that the forgoing Order is 

approved.

Dated: 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT/MAGISTRATE JUDGE 

12687277V.2

6/12/17

Case 3:17-cv-01069-RS Document 69 Filed 06/13/17 Page 9 of 9