eDiscovery Navigator

Intel Proposes Plan to Restore Lost Documents in AMD Suit

In this continuing saga between Intel and AMD, Intel filed a 39-page document yesterday in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, setting forth its plan to recover lost emails, in accordance with Judge Joseph Farnan's Order.

As part of its plan, Intel also implemented a new email archiving system "that automatically saves all messages from designated document custodians."  (In my previous post, I suggested that the lost emails were due to Intel's email archiving system and procedure.  Naturally, I would like to think that Intel took my suggestion. :)  But seriously, getting a grip on your client's or company's emails is the biggest step you can take to avoid a situation like Intel's, as discussed here and here.)

It is admirable that Intel "wants to set things right," even though the "effort will be a costly one."

(Source: http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200704241338DOWJONESDJONLINE000835_FORTUNE5.htm.)

Responding to Your Emails

I apologize for the delay in responding to your emails.  I'm finally finished with my ediscovery project, and just recently started another.  So, bear with me.  I promise to get to all your emails.

Thanks for your patience.

Lawyers: Emails Help Case Against State Farm

The last few days have been hectic, to say the least, as I'm wrapping up the eDiscovery project I have been working on for the last few months.

But I did manage to take a breather and saw this report about potentially damaging emails (disclosed during discovery) between State Farm Insurance Company and the engineering firm it hired to assess Hurricane Katrina claims.  According to the report, "[a]ttorneys for homeowners suing State Farm claim the e-mails support their argument that the insurer pressured its engineers to alter their reports on storm-damaged homes so that policyholders' claims could be denied."

(Source: http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/04/12/news/doc461ce50dc6829706369919.txt.)

A Hands-On Approach to Litigation Holds

Here's a good way of looking at the problems with implementing litigation holds.

Implementing a "litigation hold" is not the simple matter it might seem. The challenges are both human and technical. Understanding them may help oppose the admission of harmful records, avoid claims of spoliation and obstruction of justice and exploit the carelessness of adversaries.

HUMAN CHALLENGES

Some challenges, common to both electronic and paper records, involve practical difficulties in the application of settled law. Meeting them may be especially difficult where litigation is merely anticipated rather than pending, such as in the case of a grand jury investigation.

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TECHNICAL CHALLENGES

In implementing a litigation hold, special challenges arise from five characteristics of electronic records: volume, duplicability, dynamic content, metadata and dispersion. See The Sedona Principles: Best Practices Recommendations & Principles for Addressing Electronic Document Production.

(Source: http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1175072636613.)

Note:  For those interested, there are more discussions on litigation holds in the "Categories" Section on the left under "Litigation Hold."

Ideas for Managing Company Emails

Getting a grip on your company's emails before litigation begins is a good idea (to say the least), as the Intel incident showed (see previous posts here and here).

So, how does one go about doing that?  Here are some email management ideas worth considering.

The bottom-line is start early and check regularly for compliance.

Court Ordered Alleged Infringer to Produce All Missing Versions of Source Code

3Com Corp. v. D-Link Systems, Inc., Case No. 03-cv-02177 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 27, 2007)

In this patent infringement action, Plaintiff 3Com Corporation ("3Com") moved to compel production of documents and sanctions against Defendant-Intervenor Realtek Semiconductor Corporation ("Realtek").

Of particular interest is the discovery dispute over the source code of the Realteck products that allegedly infringed 3Com's patents.  Realtek produced the current and several other versions of the source code and stated that "it has now produced all the versions it maintains."  3Com argued that it has "good reason to believe" otherwise.  In fact, Realtek did not dispute 3Com's claim that although many versions of generation 3.xx were produced, versions of generations 4.xx, 5.xx, and 6.xx were not.  Realtek simply stated "[t]here can be many explanations for skipping a number when mulitple versions of the code are created," and did not expound on those "explanations."