The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, where Chief Judge Randall Rader of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit unveiled the Federal Circuit’s model e-discovery order (see the LTN article “The Elephant in the Patent Courtroom“), has developed its own Model Order Regarding E-Discovery in Patent Cases. The model order is part of the district’s proposed local rule amendment GO-12-06, which has been approved by the judges of the district, subject to public comment. The deadline for public comment on the amendments is March 23, 2012. According to the Eastern District website, the local rule amendments, including the model e-discovery order, are effective immediately.
A working group of the Eastern District’s Local Rules Advisory Committee reviewed the Federal Circuit’s e-discovery order at the court’s request to determine whether it should be included in the district’s local rules. According to the commentary accompanying the proposed rules, the working group recognized the “substantial work that went into the [Federal Circuit's] Model Order” and used it as its “baseline.” The district’s proposal includes a redline/strikeout comparison to the Federal Circuit model order and detailed commentary explaining the rationale for the deviations from the Federal Circuit model.
