Article by John Tredennick posted on Law Technology Today, September 2007: Here’s a lesson in why it’s so important to produce every bit of electronic evidence. In a patent suit earlier this year between Qualcomm and Broadcom, attorneys failed to produce evidence until four months after the trail. The result: Qualcomm was ordered to pay all of Broadcom’s litigation fees – about $10 million.
In what had to qualify as one of their worst days at the office ever, attorneys for Qualcomm learned last month that failing to produce electronic evidence can really make life unpleasant—for their client as well as for themselves.
Specifically, in early August 2007, a Federal Judge for the Southern District of California held that several Qualcomm patents should be rendered invalid as to the world (not just the defendant) based in part on the failure to produce about 200,000 pages of emails and other juicy documents until 4 months after trial. Qualcomm Inc. v. Broadcom Corp. (05-CV-1968-B)….
