March 11, 2012 - The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas unveiled a model e-discovery order, adding it as an appendix to the local rules amendments (PDF document) it posted on its website.
The e-discovery model is roughly based on one presented by Judge Randall Rader, Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, last year and is approved for use by judges of the CAFC.
The Eastern District's e-discovery model is designed to simplify the process of producing electronic documents for discovery, reduce the amount of files and media that are subject to discovery, and thereby lower discovery costs for patent cases.