Netskope, Inc. v. Fortinet, Inc.

STIPULATION & ORDER RE
DISCOVERY OF ESI
CASE NO. 4:25-CV-02360-HSG
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Thomas N. Millikan, Bar No. 234430
TMillikan@perkinscoie.com
Joseph P. Reid, Bar No. 211082
JReid@perkinscoie.com
Sarah Mae Anderson, Bar No. 359690
SarahAnderson@perkinscoie.com
PERKINS COIE LLP
11452 El Camino Real, Ste 300
San Diego, California 92130-2080
Telephone: +1.858.720.5700
Facsimile: +1.858.720.5799
Andrew N. Klein, Bar No. 300221
AKlein@perkinscoie.com
PERKINS COIE LLP
3150 Porter Drive
Palo Alto, California 94304-1212
Telephone: +1.650.838.4300
Facsimile: +1.650.838.4350
Attorneys for Plaintiff Netskope, Inc.
Ryan Iwahashi (CA SBN 284766)
ryan@gishpllc.com
GISH PLLC
50 California Street, Suite 1500
San Francisco, CA 94111
Phone: (415) 630-2000
Andrew D. Gish (NY SBN 4918454)
(pro hac vice)
andrew@gishpllc.com
Christopher Gerson (NY SBN 4595708)
(pro hac vice)
chris.gerson@gishpllc.com
GISH PLLC
41 Madison Avenue, Floor 31
New York, NY 10010
Phone: (212) 518-7380
Attorneys for Defendant Fortinet, Inc.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
OAKLAND DIVISION
NETSKOPE, INC.,
Plaintiff,
v.
FORTINET, INC.,
Defendant.
Case No.4:25-cv-02360-HSG
STIPULATION & ORDER RE:
DISCOVERY OF ELECTRONICALLY
STORED INFORMATION
Case 4:25-cv-02360-HSG Document 109 Filed 12/01/25 Page 1 of 5 PageID #:
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DISCOVERY OF ESI
CASE NO. 4:25-CV-02360-HSG
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Upon the stipulation of the parties, 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 stipulation.
3. 	As in all cases, costs may be shifted for disproportionate ESI production requests
pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26. Likewise, a party’s nonresponsive or dilatory
discovery tactics are cost-shifting considerations.
4 	A party’s meaningful compliance with this Order and efforts to promote
efficiency and reduce costs will be considered in cost-shifting determinations.
5. 	General ESI production requests under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 34 and
45 shall not include email or other forms of electronic correspondence (collectively “email”). To
obtain email parties must propound specific email production requests.
6. 	Email production requests shall only be propounded for specific issues, rather
than general discovery of a product or business.
7. 	Email production requests shall identify the custodian, search terms, and time
frame. The parties shall cooperate to identify the proper custodians, proper search terms and
proper timeframe as set forth in the Guidelines.
8. 	The following metadata fields shall be included in the parties’ ESI productions if
such fields exist: custodian, document type, file name, title (from the document properties), date
sent, date received, author (either email or lose file), recipients, copies, blind copies and email
subject.
9. 	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”) format. TIFF 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
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the location and unitization of the TIFF files. If a document is more than one
page, the unitization of the 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 text-
searchable 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
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.
E. 	Jira, Slack, and Chat Communications. Absent a showing of good
cause, Jira information (e.g., tickets, boards, workflows, and the like), Slack
communications and other chat communications are deemed not reasonably
accessible and need not be collected and preserved.
10. 	Each requesting party shall limit its email production requests to a total of five
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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
custodians, upon showing a distinct need based on the size, complexity, and issues of this
specific case. Cost-shifting may be considered as part of any such request.
11. 	Each requesting party shall limit its email production requests to a total of five
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 search terms per
custodian, upon showing a distinct need based on the size, complexity, and issues of this specific
case. The Court encourages the parties to confer on a process to test the efficacy of the search
terms. 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 shall count as a single search term. A disjunctive combination of multiple words or phrases
(e.g., “computer” or “system”) broadens the search, and thus each word or phrase shall count as a
separate search term unless they 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 a party serve
email production requests with search terms beyond the limits agreed to by the parties or granted
by the Court pursuant to this paragraph, this shall be considered in determining whether any
party shall bear all reasonable costs caused by such additional discovery.
12. 	Nothing in this Order prevents the parties from agreeing to use technology
assisted review and other techniques insofar as their use improves the efficacy of discovery.
Such topics should be discussed pursuant to the District’s E-Discovery Guidelines.
13. 	Email thread suppression techniques may be applied to eliminate or withhold
documents from production provided that All Custodians and All Paths metadata for lesser
inclusive emails that are within the producing party’s agreed-to review population and
suppressed from production are included in the metadata for the most inclusive emails that are
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produced. Additionally, all non-duplicate email attachments included in the lesser inclusive
emails that are suppressed shall be produced.
14. 	For any document withheld in its entirety on the basis of any asserted privilege,
the withholding party will promptly produce a privilege log consistent with the requirements of
the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and any applicable order of the Court. . Documents that
post-date the filing of the Complaint need not be logged in the first instance.
15. 	A producing party may assert privilege or protection over produced documents at
any time by notifying the receiving party in writing of the assertion of privilege protection. In
addition, information that contains privileged matter or attorney work product shall be
immediately returned if such information appears on its face to have been inadvertently produced
pursuant to Fed. R. Evid. 502(b).
16. 	Pursuant to Federal Rule of Evidence 502(d), the production of a privileged or
work-product-protected document, whether inadvertent or otherwise, is not a waiver of privilege
or protection from discovery in this case or in any other federal or state proceeding.
17. 	The mere production of ESI in a litigation as part of a mass production shall not
itself constitute a waiver for any purpose.
18. 	Except as expressly stated, nothing in this order affects the parties’ discovery
obligations under the Federal or Local Rules.
IT IS SO STIPULATED, through Counsel of Record.
DATED: October 2, 2025 /s/ Andrew N. Klein
Andrew N. Klein
PERKINS COIE LLP
Attorneys for Plaintiff
DATED: October 2, 2025 /s/ Christopher Gerson
Christopher Gerson
GISH PLLC
Attorneys for Defendant
IT IS ORDERED that the forgoing Agreement is approved.
Dated:
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE HAYWOOD S. GILLIAM, JR.
12/1/2025
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