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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS

MARSHALL DIVISION

COBBLESTONE WIRELESS, LLC,

Plaintiff, 

v.

CELLCO PARTNERSHIP D/B/A 

VERIZON WIRELESS

Defendants.

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Case No. 2:23-cv-00382-JRG-RSP 

(LEAD CASE)

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.

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 requirements of this

Court, shall not include metadata except for the following fields: Beg Bates, End Bates,

Family ID, Custodian, Subject, Sent Date, Sent Time, Receive Date, Receive Time, To,

From, CC, BCC, Title, File Name, Author, Creation Date and time, Modified Date and

time, and Native Link, if such fields exist and are in the Producing Party’s possession,

custody, or control.

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

apply to ESI production:

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

produced in single-page Tag Image File (“TIFF”) or Portable Document 

Format (“PDF”) format. Each electronic document shall be named with a 

unique production number followed by the appropriate file extension. 

Load files shall be provided to indicate the location of produced electronic 

documents, identify any attachments to electronic documents through 

unitization information, and identify any metadata of produced electronic 

documents. Color documents will be produced in color upon reasonable 

request and to the extent available.

B. Text-Searchable Documents. No party has an obligation to make its 

production text-searchable; however, if a party’s documents exist in any 

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

text-searchable format for use in this litigation, 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 page of any document produced in electronic image format 

shall contain a footer with a sequentially ascending production number.

D. Native Files. Excel files shall be produced in native file format. For all 

other file types, a party that receives a document produced in the format 

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

its native format.

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

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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, mobile phones, mobile phone messages (e.g., SMS), 

and corporate chat histories, are deemed not reasonably accessible and 

need not be collected and produced.

G. Encrypted Items not Reasonably Accessible. Absent a showing of good 

cause, neither party is required to produce encrypted email items that are

not reasonably decrytable or encrypted documents that are not reasonably 

decryptable.

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, a specific identification1

of the fifteen most significant listed e-mail custodians in view of the pleaded claims and 

defenses, infringement contentions and accompanying documents pursuant to P.R. 3-1 and 

3-2, invalidity contentions and accompanying documents pursuant to P.R. 3-3 and 3-4, and 

preliminary information relevant to damages. The exchange of this information shall occur 

at the time required under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Local Rules, or by order of 

the court. Each requesting party may also propound up to five written discovery requests 

1 A “specific identification” requires a short description of why the custodian is believed to be significant.

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and take one deposition per producing party to identify the specific listing of likely e-mail 

custodians, proper search terms, and proper time frame for e-mail production requests. 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 cooperate to identify the proper custodians, proper search terms, and proper 

time frame. Each requesting party shall limit its e-mail production requests to a total of 

eight (8) 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 or fewer custodians per producing party, upon showing a distinct need based 

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

9. Each requesting party shall limit its e-mail production requests to a total of ten (10) 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 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. The parties agree that 

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foreign-language translations of search terms may be identified by a requesting party, and 

that such translated search terms shall not count towards the ten (10) search terms per 

custodian per party limit.

10. For any email custodians located in the European Union or the United Kingdom, the Parties 

will confer about an appropriate agreed upon method to filter the email search results to 

exclude and/or redact hits that contain sensitive information, to comply with obligations 

under the GDPR and/or the UK’s Data Protection Act of 2018. Nothing in this Order shall

require any party to violate the terms of the GDPR and/or the UK’s Data Protection Act of 

2018 or any other privacy law or regulation that may be applicable to a given custodian.

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

work product protected ESI is not a waiver in the pending case or in any other federal 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 obligations 

under the Federal or Local Rules.

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