IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS 

MARSHALL DIVISION

ADAPTIVE SPECTRUM AND SIGNAL 

ALIGNMENT, INC.

Plaintiff,

v.

AT&T ENTERPRISES, LLC, AT&T 

MOBILITY LLC, AT&T MOBILITY II 

LLC, and AT&T SERVICES INC.

Defendants.

Case No.: 2:24-cv-029-JRG-RSP

(Lead Case)

ORDER

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.

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

and reduce costs will be considered in cost-shiftingdeterminations.

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, with the exception of the following: BEG_BATES, 

END_BATES, BEG_ATTACH, END_ATTACH, FILE_NAME, FILE EXTENSION, DOCTYPE, 

REDACTED, FILE_PATH, HASH, NATIVEFILE, TEXTFILE, Author/From, To, CC, BCC, and

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Date Sent. Additionally, 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 agree that productions to date do not need to be reproduced to conform to these 

requirements.

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 Tagged Image File Format (“TIFF”) or multipage PDF format, 

except for documents where production in such format would be impractical (including, 

for example, large spreadsheets). TIFF and PDF files 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 or PDF files. If 

a document is more than one page, the unitization ofthe document and any attachments and/or 

affixed notes shall be maintained as they existed in the original document.

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

production text- searchable; however, if a party’s documents already exist in textsearchable 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 document image shall contain a footer with a sequentially 

ascending production number.

D. Native Files. A party that receives a document produced in a format

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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.

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. Within 21 days of the entry of this Order, each party shall provide a specific 

identification of eight (8) relevant custodians likely to have discoverable email in their possession, 

custody, or control, or an explanation for why the party is unable to name that many. A “specific 

identification” requires a short description of why each custodian is believed to be significant.

8. E-mail production requests shall be phased to occur timely after the parties1 have

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

of the eight (8) most significant listed e-mail custodians (as discussed in Section 7), in view of the

1 For purposes of determining the “requesting” party and the “producing” party, here, Plaintiff 

ASSIA, along with any complaining group, shall be considered a single “requesting” or 

“producing” party, and Defendants AT&T, along with any defending group, shall be considered a 

single “requesting” or “producing” party.

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pleaded claims and defenses,2 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. 

The court may allow additional discovery upon a showing of goodcause.

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

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

time frame. If a custodian is designated as a 30(b)(6) witness, the parties agree each witnesscustodians’ email discovery shall be produced to the receiving party no later than two weeks prior 

to that witness’s deposition date. Each requesting party shall limit its e-mail production requests to 

a total of seven (7) 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 specificcase.

10. Each requesting party 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 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

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

significant.

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shall count as a single search term. A disjunctive combination of multiple words or phrases (e.g., 

“computer” or “system”) broadensthe search, and thus each word or phrase shall count as a separate 

search term unlessthey 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 either of the Parties object to any

search terms on the basis of overproduction, the Parties shall meet and confer in good faith to 

resolve the objection. If the Parties are unable to resolve the objection, the objecting Party may 

move for a protective order limiting suchdisclosure.

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 LocalRules.

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