On May 15, 2013, the Commission published Amendments (78 Fed. Reg. 29618-24) to its Rules of Practice and Procedure concerning Adjudication and Enforcement, which become effective on June 20, 2013. The amendments provide, inter alia, general limitations on discovery and specific limitations on electronically stored information similar to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b) as well as procedures under which persons can make claims of privilege or work product and for addressing information that is produced in discovery but is later asserted to be privileged or protected by work product. The Amendments were made to the Commission’s Rules of Practice and Procedure 19 C.F.R. Part 210 - Adjudication and Enforcement, Subpart E - Discovery and Compulsory Process §210.27 General provisions concerning discovery. Many of the final rules are identical to the correspondingly numbered proposed rules published by the Commission on October 5, 2012 (77 Fed. Reg. 60952-56). However, the final rules contain eight changes from the proposed rules after the Commission considered the public comments on the proposed rules amendments. The Commission received a total of 8 sets of comments, including from the American Bar Association, Section of Intellectual Property Law; the American Intellectual Property Lawyers Association; Aderant; Cisco; Dell; Ford Motor; Hewlett- Packard; Intel; Micron; Toyota; the Association of Corporate Counsel; and the ITC Trial Lawyers Association. A detailed summary of the amendments to 19 C.F.R. §210.27 follows. (This summary is not intended to be inclusive of all amendments set forth in the final rules.)
Please see full publication below for more information.