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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS

MARSHALL DIVISION

VALTRUS INNOVATIONS LTD,

Plaintiff, 

 v. 

AT&T INC., et al

Defendants.

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CASE NO. 2:23-cv-00443-JRG 

(Lead Case)

JURY TRIAL DEMANDED

VALTRUS INNOVATIONS LTD,

Plaintiff,

 v. 

T-MOBILE USA, INC., et al

Defendants.

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CASE NO. 2:23-cv-00444-JRG 

(Member Case)

JURY TRIAL DEMANDED

VALTRUS INNOVATIONS LTD,

Plaintiff,

 v. 

VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS, INC., 

et al 

Defendants.

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CASE NO. 2:23-cv-00445-JRG 

(Member Case)

JURY TRIAL DEMANDED

ORDER REGARDING E-DISCOVERY

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. 

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2. This Order may be modified in the court’s discretion or by agreement of the

parties. If the parties cannot resolve their disagreements regarding these modifications, the 

parties shall submit their competing proposals and a summary of their dispute.

3. A party’s meaningful compliance with this order and efforts to promote

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

4. Absent a showing of good cause, general ESI production requests under Federal 

Rules of Civil Procedure 34 and 45, or compliance with a mandatory disclosure requirement of 

this Court, shall not include metadata. However, metadata fields listed in Appendix A shall be 

included in the production if such fields exist.

5. Absent agreement of the parties or further order of this court, the following 

parameters shall apply to ESI production1

:

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

produced in single-page Tagged Image File Format (“TIFF”) format or native format. Each 

electronic document produced in native or TIFF format shall be single page and shall be named 

with a unique production number followed by the appropriate file extension. Load files shall 

be provided to indicate the location and unitization of the TIFF files, as applicable. 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.

b. Text-Searchable Documents. If a party’s documents already exist in

1 To the extent their productions of ESI pre-dating the Court’s entry of this Order do not

comply with the requirements set forth in this Order, the parties further agree to re-produce 

metadata associated with such past productions in a form that is compliant with the requirements 

of this order within fourteen (14) days of the Court’s entry of this Order.

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text- searchable format independent of this litigation, or are converted to text-searchable format

for use in thislitigation, including for use by the producing party’s counsel, then such documents

shall be produced in the same text-searchable format at no cost to the receiving party.

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

ascending production number. Native files produced by a party shall include the Bates number 

in its file name and/or be produced with a slipsheet that denotes the confidentiality designation 

and bates number. 

d. Native Files. Documents that would not be reasonably legible in image 

or near-native format, and documents that would be incomplete in image or near-native format, 

should be produced as native files. Spreadsheets (e.g., MS Excel, Google Sheets) and delimited 

text files (e.g. comma-separated value (.csv) files and tab-separated value (.tsv) files) shall be 

produced in either their native file format or MS Excel. A party that receives a document

maintained in a format specified above may make a reasonable request to receive the document 

in its native format, and upon receipt of such a request, the producing party shall produce the 

document in its native format.

e. 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, to comply with its discovery obligations in the present case.

f. Voicemail and Mobile Devices. Absent a showing of good cause, 

voicemails, PDAs and mobile phones are deemed not reasonably accessible and need not be 

collected and preserved.

g. Translations. All documents shall be produced in their original

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language. Where a requested document exists in a foreign language and the producing party also

has one or more English-language version(s) of that document created in the ordinary course of

business and located as part of the reasonable search for the foreign language document, the 

producing party shall produce the foreign language versions and the English-language version(s)

of that document. In addition, if the producing party has or obtains during the course of this 

action a certified translation of a foreign-language document the producing party shall produce 

both the original document and the certified translation promptly after the translation is obtained 

by the producing party. Nothing in this paragraph obligates a party to produce certified 

translations of any documents that will not be relied upon before the Court.

6. General ESI production requests under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 34 and

45, or compliance with a mandatory disclosure order of this court, shall not include e-mail or

other forms of electronic correspondence (collectively “e-mail”). To obtain e-mail parties must 

propound specific e-mail production requests.

7. E-mail production requests shall be phased to occur timely after the parties have 

exchanged initial disclosures, a specific listing of likely e-mail custodians, and a specific 

identification of the fifteen most significant listed e-mail custodians in view of (a) the pleaded 

claims and defenses (excluding issues concerning venue),2 (b) infringement contentions and 

accompanying documents pursuant to P.R. 3-1 and 3-2, (c) invalidity contentions and 

accompanying documents pursuant to P.R. 3-3 and 3-4, and (d) preliminary information relevant 

to damages. Each requesting party may also propound up to five written discovery requests and 

2 A “specific identification” requires a short description of why the custodian is believed 

to be significant. Further, if a party makes a good faith attempt to locate e-mail custodians who 

are likely to have non-cumulative information relevant to the claims or defenses but cannot identify 

fifteen such custodians, that party shall list as many custodians as practicable.

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take one deposition per producing Side, if necessary, to identify the proper custodians, proper 

search terms, and proper time frame for e-mail production requests. (For the purposes of this 

Order, “Side” means a party or group of parties with a common interest with respect to this

lawsuit, with one Side consisting of Plaintiff and another Side consisting of each of the following 

Related Defendant Groups: (1) T-Mobile USA, Inc., T-Mobile US, Inc., Sprint Corp.; (2) 

OnePlus Technology (Shenzen) Co., Ltd., OnePlus Mobile Communications (Guangdong) Co., 

Ltd.; (3) Verizon Communications Inc., and Cellco Partnership, d/b/a Verizon Wireless).3 The

court may allow additional discovery upon a showing of good cause.

8. E-mail production requests shall identify the custodian, search terms, and time 

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

terms, and proper time frame. E-mail production requests shall be limited to a total of eight

custodians for each of Verizon and T-Mobile Defendant Groups and a total of four custodians 

for each of Valtrus and the OnePlus Related Defendant Group for all such requests. The parties

may jointly agree to modify thislimit without the court’s leave. The courtshall consider contested

requests for additional or fewer custodians per producing Side, upon showing a distinct need

based on the size, complexity, and issues of this specific case. 

9. Each Side shall limit its e-mail 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 or fewer search terms per 

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

case. The search terms shall be narrowly tailored to particular issues. Indiscriminate terms, such 

3 For the avoidance of doubt, each Related Defendant Group is separately a Side.

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as the producing company’s name or its product name or service 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. After 

exchanging search terms, but prior to producing emails, the Parties shall promptly confer in 

good faith to ensure that the total number of hits persearch term (including search termsin native

language) and temporal limitsfor each custodian are reasonable and in the event the total number

of hitsfor a date range for a single custodian are unreasonably excessive , the Parties shall confer 

to reduce the number of hits to a reasonable number and/or confine the date range to a reasonable 

time period.

10. The parties shall endeavor to produce email attachments sequentially after the 

parent email and to identify, via metadata, the email attachments as the children of the parent 

email.

11. Pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 502(d), the inadvertent production of a 

privileged or work product protected ESIis not a waiverin the pending case or in any otherfederal 

or state proceeding.

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

itself constitute a waiver for any purpose.

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

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obligations under the Federal or Local Rules.

____________________________________

RODNEY GILSTRAP

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE So ORDERED and SIGNED this 1st day of March, 2024.

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APPENDIX A 

Field Name

Bates Beg

Bates End

Bates Beg Attach

Bates End Attach

Custodian

All Custodians

Number of Attachments

Page Count

File Extension

File Size

File Name

File Type

Record Type

Created Date/Time

Last Modified Date/Time

Sent Date/Time

Email Received Date/Time

Author

Last Saved By

Email From

Email To

Email CC

Email BCC

Email Subject

Document Subject

Document Title

MD5 Hash

Time Zone Field

Text Path

Native File Link

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